Second Shot
by Ganheim
Summary: One year after Haseo fought through the Third Network Crisis, most have moved on. The Rebirth has eliminated AIDA, but its damage remains and more rogue AI remain. When a new user stumbles across a certain account, the scars of The World reopen...
1. Catering to the Old Home

**Second Shot**

Chapter 1:

Catering to the Old Home

". . . Senior Executive Kousaka paid his respects to the victims of the emergency landing of the ASST-123 on October 12, vowing to step up the company's investigation into the cause of the loss of control and provide the world's safest passenger airliners. This appearance is thought to be an act of assurance to the public and investors . . ."

A thick hand with prominent veins reaches to the keypad beneath the tiny screen set into the dashboard and taps the diminutive buttons until reaching a local weather station. A younger man's hand reaches from the driver's seat on the right, but the heavyset man gives a sharp clearing of the throat, stopping the driver as quickly as if he'd slapped the limb away. "The news has been filled with that Third Network Crisis for a _year_ and if it's anything like the last two times we'll be hearing about it until the next one. The less I have to hear about it, the better."

Arakawa Kenji stifles his grump as much as he can as he drives the catering van down the highway. "I don't think it's such a bad thing to know what's going on, Takeda-sama. Besides, the Kusakas are hosting the event indoors, it won't matter what the weather is when we get there."

Takeda Noriyama turns a hard glare to the young man to his right. "As if news in the computer world matters to a young man with _your_ record. You should be thanking me every day for the privilege of working in Pascal's Service. We had graduates from Tokyo University competing for my company! If it wasn't for a few mistakes made by my accountant that led to charges of income tax misreporting, I never would have taken a man with a prison record!"

Kenji slumps in his seat with a haggard sigh, staring out through the rain-splattered windshield. After Mori's Law was passed, prosecution for computer crimes became easier, and anything associated with identity theft was slapped with mandatory sentencing. Initially, the convicts weren't supposed to be allowed to _touch_ computers, but in the modern age that's nearly impossible, so it merely bars him from the jobs he loves most – tinkering with computers. He draws in a slow breath, wishing he can just snap back in defense of his ego, but with technology fields barred to him, his Computer Engineering degree from Kyoto University is useless. He needs this job.

"And I am grateful, Takeda-sama," Kenji states slightly mechanically, the well-rehearsed line not sounding _too_ fake and placating the large man in the passenger seat. Unfortunately, the peace is short-lived and Noriyama alternates between disparaging Kenji and bemoaning the unfair tax charges for the rest of the drive to the Maeda Community Center.

The young Japanese man carefully brings the van through the deep puddle collecting at the service road, navigating down the gravel stretch passing along the property wall to the service entrance in the back. The space yawns like the gaping jaws of a giant, at least 20 meters wide, with a raised concrete lip along half of that for larger trucks. Large cracks spread over the pavement on the lower area, though a ramp on the far side looks freshly repaired. Kenji reaches for the space in the seat between them for the umbrella and comes up with only the clipboard, which Noriyama snatches back into his hands. With-holding a groan, he pops open his door and rushes around, thanking the gods that at least it's not a summer downpour, and opens the door for his boss.

The two rush towards the ramp and are greeted by three of the other cooks coming down. Kenji tries to keep going for shelter, but Noriyama grabs his sleeve and yanks him hard, nearly knocking the young man to the ground. Noriyama snaps at the cooks, all four bowing obsequiously at the raging business owner. After a minute, he finally points back at the van. "Hurry up and finish unloading! Master Pascal is late enough and we are _not_ going to disappoint esteemed doctors like Kusaka-sensei."

The four bow again and Kenji strains to try to find something good about being sent to run around in the cold and rain for even longer. _At least Noriyama's not here_. Looking at the other three cooks, he realizes that none of them have loading carts for the heavy vats. "Wait, Sosuke, go back inside and get the carts. Let's try to do this in less than three trips."

The brown-haired man nods and dashes back while Kenji follows the other two and unlocks the back of the catering van. He glances down the cracked employee parking to count three other vans already parked, that should mean that only the master chef himself is late. The cooks finish half of the unloading before a classy compact car swings into the spot next to Kenji's van. The driver scrambles out and opens the door for a tall, tan-skinned European man in a chef's rainment, glaring at the driver as he fights with the umbrella until it snaps open. Wheeling the last cart up behind Master Pascal, the cooks all duck into the kitchen and the dance of mixed European cuisine picks up in earnest.

A thin Japanese youth slips in through the main kitchen doors and hurries up to the owner before wiping his brow despite a lack of actual perspiration. "Takeda-san, the guests are starting to arrive."

Pascal throws up both of his hands in his favorite gesture of annoyance before stalking down the kitchen. Noriyama jabs a thick finger in Kenji's face. "Arakawa, serve the hours d'ouvres, customers like seeing your face. Maki! If I catch you running with boiling sugar again you'd better hope it ends up on you instead of the floor!"

The owner stalks off and Kenji leaves the soup to the new runner, fuming. Being called the pretty boy of the company was something started by the culinary university graduates angry at him joining as a cook without having a chef's degree or training. Handling the small appetizers is normally a job for the newest cooks and assistants who haven't started college yet and he's been with them nearly a year, but complaining would be unwise now with the owner still looking for heads to bite off and preparations behind schedule. Competition in Tokyo is fierce and company reputation is even more important than individual employees.

Finished arranging the silver trays, Kenji deftly takes one in each hand and shoulders open the swinging doors into the cavernous audience hall. He crashes into a brown-haired girl milling around the kitchen doors, sending the two Japanese and polished silvers tray tumbling to the ground. "Gods damn it!"

Kenji flips onto his knees, snatches one tray, and begins scooping the snacks back onto it. His ability to hold onto his tense anger fizzles when the long-haired girl in a formal dress – probably barely 18 – apologizes and kneels next to him and begins helping to scoop more of the scattered cheese onto the other tray. He lets out a long sigh and holds out a hand to stop her. "No, please miss, this is my job. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have been running so quickly."

"No Arakawa-san, I'm sorry," she counters timidly after glancing at his name tag, swallowing and galvanizing her courage. "I didn't have anything to do, so I was hanging around the kitchen listening. I've never cooked Italian . . ."

"It's alright, nobody was expecting the rain today and everybody in the company's a little tense." Kenji pauses, noticing that all of the guests but this girl are milling around the entry foyer. "So . . . what's your name?"

"Oh," she startles slightly, still delicately picking up fallen confections before answering – despite his attempts to politely wave her away, "Chigusa. Kusaka Chigusa."

"Kusaka?" Kenji promptly drops the tray in his hand. "Like, the doctor Kusuka?" When she nods hesitantly, he nearly hits her by bowing deeply. _Oh man, I can't afford a complaint today, not when everybody's on such thin ice_. "Please, Kusuka-san, forgive my clumsiness."

"Oh no," she states with the tense kind of smile of a person unsure if she should laugh or be formal. "You didn't do anything wrong, Arakawa-san. I just wasn't being careful enough." Now her smile takes on a sort of self-derisive smirk. "It seems whether I'm in real life or playing The World, I'm still making careless mistakes." She fidgets with her fingers and whispers, "I miss back then." She stands with Kenji and glances to the men in expensive business suits by the foyer, but before she can say anything the swinging door bursts open, slapping Kenji in the back.

The blow knocks him stumbling and sends the two trays flying again. Sosuke swings out of the kitchen with a tray in each hand, eyes drawn to Kenji's trays just as one upends over Chigusa. Sosuke sucks in a breath and jumps, turning pale as a sheet before letting out a meek 'eep'. Noriyama coming out after him is not so quiet.

"Fools!" A few of the guests turn their gaze towards the commotion, and Noriyama smoothes out his dark business suit and puts on a convincingly nonchalant air. As soon as the guests' attention is elsewhere, he turns a burning gaze on his two employees and hisses, "What are you bumbling louts doing?" The two junior cooks hastily scramble up, and Noriyama hauls up the closest – Kenji – by the front of his cook's overalls. "You're on thin ice by default, Arakawa. Now stop tripping over our customers and get back to work or the next place you'll be serving will be soup kitchens for the unemployed."

The computer technician-turned-caterer takes the two trays from Sosuke and meanders into the growing crowd of suits. The throng of wealthy patrons practically ignores his existence, forcing him to weave among clumps to move around and dodging around several elbows and outstretched wine glasses. The first one to actually speak to him berates him for moving too quickly to conveniently grab a snack. Pascal, normally supportive of Arakawa Kenji, is snappy and irritable from lack of sleep, and the district chefs can't seem to speak at him without spitting poison.

The cold mass of humanity presses like the all the tides of the ocean on their dark depths, and Kenji wishes he was back at one of the smaller catering jobs at a college, or anywhere that made him feel less mediocre.

…

He walks into his dark, cramped flat a few minutes after 3 AM. The living space doesn't even have two true rooms: one is a storage and kitchen area with a plug-in electric burner but no sink or plumbing, and the other a sleeping and general living space separated by a counter. Most of it is empty, besides a refrigerator on the edge of the kitchen space, a hammock frame shoved into the corner, and a radio alarm clock giving a dim red glow to the spartan room.

Kenji pulls out his pocket pad and looks at the schedule. The Takahashis cancelled, leaving nothing to do for the next three days. He sets the pad down and rests his elbows on the counter of the meager kitchen space before banging both fists against the counter, sinking to his knees, and fisting his hair. Especially on bad days like today, it seems like all of his co-workers, including his company owner, do everything they can to edge him out, and he has no one to turn to with his parents' early passing away. Kenji can't handle idleness, and things are pressing in too much like it is . . .

A rapid, familiar knocking at the door jerks him from his brief episode, and he straightens his clothes before heading to the door on the southern wall. While there is a peep hole in it to look out at unexpected guests, Kenji doesn't need to use it. He remembers that knock from all the way back in middle school.

"Shinichi?" he asks in pleasant surprise at seeing his old friend.

The short-brown-haired urbanite grins ear to ear and reaches out, slapping the front then back of his palm against Kenji's. "Hey, pally!" he exclaims in the exaggerated accent he picked up from Osaka when he wanted to be dramatic. "We kept in contact all that time and then you just disappear when The Man gives you the boot? What, think you lost your kitsune bi? You'll never lose the magic touch."

Kenji smiles back and returns a brief hug with his longtime friend. "I . . ." He can't force words into his mouth, the weight of the day and the sudden arrival of his best friend is too much. "It's been hard, Shi-kun. They put me in a job with a catering company – one of the biggest in Kantou. And you know that stupid law, unless they fix it this Diet I'm still redlisted in every major computer store in the region. I can't even put together my own rig."

"I bet you'd give anything to have a go at it again, Kenji-kun?" Shinichi says with his smile undiminished, clasping his arms behind his back.

Now Kenji crosses his arms and leans back. "This isn't just a social visit?"

Shinichi laughs, but this time keeps it down, then glances not quite inconspicuously down both sides of the narrow hallway. "Have I ever bored you with _just_ a social call?"

Kenji nearly reaches out – there were two reasons he earned the nickname 'blue kitsune'. One was his skill in circumnavigating passwords and security programs. The other was the fact that kitsune were compulsive tricksters and he, like the folk tales, just couldn't help but see what he could do. There may have been times that he and Shinichi would meet just to catch up, but those became few and far in between. He and the others he fell in with were just too good at . . . coming by slightly used computers. He never thought that much about it before he was caught, they were all he had.

Finally Shinichi leans to the side and picks up a black duffel bag up from its casual hiding spot just beside the outside of Kenji's door. Kenji brushes a hand through his jet-black hair and trots back into the living room, Shinichi following after and closing the door after him. He sets the duffel bag gently down on the relatively empty wood-flooring of the living space, opening the zipper to reveal a gunmetal gray desktop computer, model A-11, complete with monitor, speakers and M2D headset.

"We were wondering if you could . . . take a look inside, see if there's anything worth it in there," Shinichi smirks as he looks around the largely empty living space as his friend gently ruffles through the neatly packed bag. "I can see that you're kinda starved for entertainment. Even if there's nothing in this, I'll throw the computer in."

Three hours later, Kenji is alone in his flat and the computer screen reads: "Welcome to The World. Please wait while your system updates . . ."

Kenji rubs his eyes and sets down the M2D as a long yawn escapes, and decides to leave it for after some rest.

…

Author's Note: Since I could not find any specific canon dates, I've had to make them up for a best fit scenario. If anybody has something concrete, I'd be glad to revise with corrections. This story is a _big_ experimental project for me, so I'd love to hear any questions, speculation, or feedback you have.

Note on names: traditionally, names in Japan are written as "Family name, personal name". Since this story takes place in .Hack's Japan I will use this method of writing out the names.

Pascal is named after the French mathematician Blaise Pascal, who was one of several who significantly expanded the field of mathematics and science, especially by his 1646 refutation of Aristotilian theory that "nature abhors a vacuum".

For those who aren't sure: yes, the Kusaka Chigusa is the very same as the player behind Atoli.

Kitsune bi – basically the array of tricks and magic that kitsune would use in folk tales.


	2. Stolen Login

**Second Shot**

Chapter 2:

Stolen Login

The sun weakly filters into the lone window on the northern wall when Arakawa Kenji wakes. He works his jaw a little, feeling dry-mouthed and stiff. His blanket isn't ruffled, but he doesn't have a tendency to roll around even during nightmares, so he tries to push aside the echoes of yelling in his ears, burying the memories of two years. After some stretching and calisthenics, he glances at the radio/alarm clock to see it tick to 11:46.

He double checks it when he realizes that the alarm is off. Peripherally he hears a strange tune and thought it was something on the radio – it certainly isn't any of the ringtones he has on his pocket tablet. Kenji's confusion grows until he looks back at the gunmetal gray computer sitting in the corner. A quick flick of the trackball brings the monitor out of its sleep mode, to the login screen of The World.

Login ID: Haseo  
>Password: ****<br>Remember Password: Yes

Kenji's jaw drops open. Haseo was all over the news for months last year, he was probably the most famous player in The World. Consecutively winning all three duel palace tournaments, and on his first try, was something that made headlines even in other countries. While nothing else on the computer was worth anything, the login alone could probably go for millions of yen. If only it wasn't buried on CC Corp servers – even Kenji wouldn't try sneaking around in them. He heard what happened to Indou Masato.

Glancing around his sparsely-furnished flat, he gets up to check his pocket tablet. Nothing. Most people probably wouldn't have a problem with getting through a Sunday with nothing to do, but Kenji's never handled being alone and idle well.

Strumming his fingers on the mat floor, less than sixty seconds pass before Kenji strides across the small living space to the computer. He sits down and rubs the sleep out of his eyes. He didn't manage to get a restful sleep, or even six hours, but he hasn't slept well since his father died in 2013, so he accepts what rest he can get and decides to deal with his boredom. After all, there's an account for The World sitting right in front of him.

He's just about to log in when his hand hesitates. _Come to think of it, I've never even seen The World except for the televised title match for the Sage Palace tournament_. Setting the game aside for a moment, he browses a video sharing site to watch a couple minutes of Haseo, first in palace tournaments and one from an item harvesting walkthrough interrupted by PKers, then saved by Haseo.

They all seem to play out basically the same. While he shows a strategic rhythm in his later tournament matches, for the most part Haseo hits fast and doesn't let up. He doesn't talk much to either victims or rescues, acting rather consistently distant and gruff. Kenji scratches his chin as he shuffles on the floor, regretting not having a proper desk to put the computer on. _I wonder what else is in The World_. He navigates back to the official game site and downloads the instruction manual, which apparently contains revisions for the updates that stalled him last ni . . . earlier that morning.

_Run, jump, climb, alchemy for item crafting, this all looks like basic stuff_. After a few more minutes of browsing, he decides to get into the game itself and dons the M2D.

A gritty, slipshod-looking town fades into view around him, and a moment later the GUI snaps into being. _For all the advertising and pictures, I would've expected the cities to look beautiful, but this place looks like a slum_. Glancing around, he notes that the characters all look deformed. One character wearing a long brown coat walks past with an old-fashioned television set for a head – complete with rabbit-ear antennae, though the screen where a face should have been shows only digital snow.

Kenji opens the menu and scrolls into the status screen, boggling at Haseo's stats. _No wonder nobody beat him, he could probably go toe-to-toe with bosses solo and win without breaking a sweat_. Although his non-combat stats look pretty much untouched. Toggling through the status screen, he reaches a visual display that shows a player character that doesn't look at all like the videos of a black armored Haseo. Instead, it seems that Haseo has somehow transformed into something slim and white. _What the heck is this?_

"Ah, Haseo-sama," floats a woman's voice from somewhere deeper in the city.

Panic seizes him and the only thing that stops Kenji from bolting is the narrow road giving only two places to go: back to the Chaos Gate and deeper into the slum-like city. After what feels like ages, he fights down the brief terror and closes the menus so he can look at the person talking to him. She's garbed in a bright red, shoulderless yukata – the kind of thing that you'd only see in traditional ceremonies in real life, with ink-black hair. Fortunately, her name appears when he brings the cursor over her character. Apparently she's also on his friend list. _This could be bad_.

"Ah . . . hi there, Kaede."

She bows, the gesture both formal and cute in a throwback-traditional sort of way. Given her character design, it's probably part of the persona she (or he – this _is_ the internet) plays in this game. She then straightens and looks at him, obviously shifting gears from a different line of thought she was about to pursue. "You sound different, master Haseo."

_He doesn't have a pre-set voice changer? Oh crap, oh crap . . _. Kenji quite nearly shouts, entering another near panic-attack. Reeling mentally and glad that the computer's awkward position means he's already lying down, he scrambles for an excuse. "I . . . decided to use a different voice changer."

Kaede considers that for a moment, then nods. "It makes you sound older, Haseo-sama." She then looks down and raises a loosely fisted hand, as if grasping for something more mentally than outwardly. "Actually, I believe it is fortuitous that we met here now. Delen remarked that I have been investing overmuch amounts of time in attempting to revive Moon Tree, and even master Zelkova opinionated that I should leave the matter to rest for a time and find a diversion."

She bows in a polite apology. "I realize that we have spent very little time together in the past six months, but . . . You have done so much for myself and Moon Tree before the Cubia Incident, and I have never properly thanked you. May I ask if I may accompany you for a brief while?"

"No, that's okay," Kenji answers, opening new windows to run a search for 'Moon Tree' and 'Cubia Incident'. He doesn't find anything but rumors on Cubia, but picks up enough on Moon Tree that he can try to bluff his way ahead. Apparently the guild was disbanded in 2020 on disputed charges of hacking the system, hopefully that's enough time that any gaps in his knowledge can be forgiven as forgotten. "Well, I'm level 148, so it doesn't really matter. Want to go to some random area?"

Kaede nods and sends a party request. Kenji adds her and heads back to the Chaos Gate to punch in a random area. A level 112 grassy island sprawls out before them, no players and few enemies to interrupt the tranquil scenery. Kenji strolls unhurriedly forward, waiting for the red-clad woman. She's silent for a while, so he decides to prompt, "Why don't you go back and fill me in? Pretend I'm new to the whole thing, maybe we'll think of something important."

"Well," Kaede begins, holding a loose fist to her lip as if afraid to start, "Moon Tree was such a highly successful guild, I never thought anything could happen to it. Then Sakaki and AIDA hit," she looks at him in a manner that he senses should be meaningful, but he has no idea what it's for. Does 'Sakaki' or 'AIDA' mean something to Haseo's player? Time for another quick search . . .

Kaede lets out a heavy sigh. "Right, as if you were new. Well . . . after AIDA infected Moon Tree's home area, CC Corp banned the guild on charges of hacking the system to cover up their failure to confront the issue. They charged _us_ to hide _their_ failure to act . . ."

Her hands are fisted and shaking, and Kenji thinks he has it figured out. "So this is, at its heart, about the fact that they screwed up and made _you_ take the fall for it?"

She shakes her head, but appears to calm somewhat. The stress lines at the edges of her eyes fade and her shoulders seem slightly less tense. "No. I think the truth is that Zelkova-sama was so happy with Moon Tree and . . ." Kaede turns partly away to look at a nearby party of goblin soldiers. Her shoulders sink and she lifts a hand to her forehead. "May I speak personally, Haseo-sama?"

"Go ahead."

"Maybe it was marrying too early, but there were so many things I did wrong . . ." Kaede's eyes start to glisten, and Kenji wonders how many details of the players leak into the characters before she moves on. "I was still so careless . . . my son died in an accident. When I found Zelkova, it's like somebody gave me a chance to do it all over again . . . no, but a chance to try it again and make it _right_."

Kenji nods in what he hopes is a supporting manner, trying his hardest to read between the lines. She never mentioned her husband and the death of a child, especially an only child, tends to break up most marriages, so she's probably been struggling with all of this alone for maybe many years. Unfortunately, she's started to turn farther away, and he thinks she's shaking slightly.

Unsure if he's overstepping whatever bounds Haseo and Kaede might have had, but Kenji's never been able to walk away from a troubled friends. He steps closer and takes Kaede by the shoulders, forcing her to face him directly. "Hey. My mother died when I was still in grammar school, and my father passed away before I even started High School. I had to make my own family, and we made a lot of mistakes but we still stuck together because we were _family_. Believe me when I say I understand."

Kaede looks back up at him, straightening with her resolve. "Thank you, Haseo-sama—"

Now Kenji steps back and holds up a hand. "I do need to ask for one thing, however." She nods and he continues. "My boss is a judgmental jerk who makes me call him 'sama' because he wants to 'remind me of my place'. It makes me feel a little . . ." He squirms, the first word coming to mind being 'icky' and refusing to use it. "_Wrong_ to hear that used for myself. I don't ever want anybody else to think they have to talk like that around me."

Kaede blinks, glancing down at the grass before she looks back at him with a nod. "I understand, Haseo-san."

"Has anything happened to Zelkova?" Kenji asks, trying to sound casual but genuinely unsure about the matter. If something _did_ go wrong, then he's just stepped off the gangplank . . .

"No," she states with a mild shake of her head. Kenji just barely holds in a relieved sigh.

"Zelkova may have needed your help once, but he's a resourceful guy," Kenji guesses at the gender of Zelkova's character. Kaede _did_ say he/she/it reminded her of her son. At least her recent mention of whoever it is means that he's still around and probably fine. "If nothing's happened, he'll probably be fine. Besides, you need to take care of yourself, too. What's it going to do to him if you burn yourself out?"

Now Kaede glances to one side, the corners of her mouth quirking up. Kenji fights a flutter inside himself – that was always what he looked forward to most with his old family. Knowing he'd done something they liked, helping them out somehow . . . She looks back and nods once more. "You're right. Thank you, Haseo-san."

…

Author's Note: There are a lot of skills and things added such as Endurance and Alchemy, I'm trying to make it seem more like a real pay-to-play MMORPG. One of the facets of all of them is that they have a lot of things to spend your time on – the more things there are to do in a game, the more likelihood that you'll keep paying the company to keep playing it. Of course, like the dot Hack series, a lot more focus is going to be on the characters than skill or quest grinding.

Also, just because there's a new player behind Haseo doesn't mean that Misaki Ryou (the original player) is out of the picture . . .


	3. First Victory

**Second Shot**

Chapter 3:

First Victory

The train slides to a stop and the doors slide open a few centimeters, then halt. The passengers, packed in like sardines, immediately start shouting and complaining. Kenji squeezes his eyes shut and tries to imagine himself somewhere else, like floating in the ocean instead of being so badly stuck in the train that he missed the last stop, with some smelly old man's elbow jammed into his ribs . . .

"Open the gods-damned doors!"

_Now I know why there's a word for people who prefer to stay indoors and avoid this madness_. Arakawa Kenji tightens his grip on the rigid thermal container with his week's assignment from the culinary school. People pressed against him on all sides push, some trying vainly to hold their own positions and others trying to move either closer or farther from the doors. Metal grinds on metal and the doors crash open, allowing the people inside to surge out like water pouring from a breached dam. Kenji braces himself on one foot and pushes twice as hard as last time, desperate not to be caught at the doors as they close like last time. Somebody stomps on his foot and he bites his tongue to keep an expletive inside. He makes it out and the pushers forcing people in move almost too soon. Kenji summons his energy to charge and weave through the mass of humanity until he finally forces his way to the train station exit.

Having missed his intended stop, it takes another six blocks of walking. The buildings are crammed, but at least this is a calm part of Tokyo with low crime. _Better than where I grew up_, he silently notes with a bitter smile. People shuffle along on both sides of the street as a delivery truck trundles down the single-lane road. Eventually he reaches the fourteen-story residential building where his home is nestled, but the moment he steps out of the stairwell into the fifth floor a set of pale brown eyes jumps into view.

"Hey, pally!" Shinichi grins, a heavy black duffel bag hanging on one shoulder. "Even goin' to a Westerner's school . . . they've really got you in. How's life been treating you?"

Kenji remains silent as he unlocks his flat. Admittedly he never would've expected to like something that he once considered 'as low as cooking' before, but now . . . he can't think of a way to tell his old friend that he's actually enjoying his time as long as his Takeda Noriyama isn't there. It's completely different than the intriguing puzzle that computers are, but . . . The door pops open and Arakawa looks back at the man who helped him keep his sanity when his father died. "It's a way of life."

Shinichi laughs aloud and gives Kenji a powerful slap on the back as he follows the cook-in-training into his living space. Kenji drops his backpack near the entrance, then heads straight back to the kitchenette to put away the pastry dough. His messy-haired friend heads to the computer set up on the floor and chuckles. "You sure make quick work of 'em. How's it runnin'?"

Kenji closes the door to his refrigerator, crammed with food from school. He feels tired from a long day at the job yesterday going late, lasting into the early hours of the morning. Burning his biroche at the cooking school just kept the bad luck going. At least the computer Shinichi gave him works well. "It's an A-11, they're still pretty good."

Shinichi nods supportively and gives two thumbs up. "Glad to hear you liked it, bro. Find anything on it?"

Kenji hesitates. He rehearsed for this moment, despite the fact that he could easily answer either yes or no and still be telling the truth. He shakes his head and states, "No," then chickens out and heads back into the fridge to hide his troubled expression. "Hey, do you like bread? Most western kinds are a little sour, but they've got a good kick."

The messy-brown-haired man sets down the black duffel bag and trots closer. "Sour? Yuck, I'll stick with the corner bakery. So, what did you find?"

"You snagged a High School kid's computer. At most, he's starting his first semester of college. Probably did all his buying from a smart phone."

Shinichi snaps his fingers. "Nuts, that came from a snazzy condo. Got enough time to look at another?"

Kenji almost laughs. There was never any saying no to his virtual family. The idea of falling right back into the same routine leaves a bit of a chill after the two years he spent . . . but family is family. Shinichi and the others were all he had. Besides, he'd just gotten the first computer, he felt like he owed his old friend. "Yeah." He straightens. "Yeah, of course I can take another. I got work on Wednesday, though, is Saturday good?"

…

The rusted, ramshackle city fades in around Haseo, and he looks up and around. _Same slum as the last log-in, I guess that means it wasn't an error_. Glancing around, he notices the same general crowd of strange, probably hacked characters. No sign of the woman in red, or anybody that looks like a normal PC at all.

Kenji frowns. He may not have been particularly looking forward to playing the part of somebody else, but the entire reason he came to The World was to interact with the players. After a sigh, he turns around and looks at the Chaos Gate. Haseo's supposed to be good at combat and Kenji's never actually fought, so it might be a good idea to try. It will also allow him to see what differences there are between the spiky black armor and the white coat form that Haseo seems to have taken.

The Chaos Gate menu opens, and Kenji decides to look through Haseo's areas. He knows that bookmarks allow players to attach notes to certain areas, and Haseo's is filled with strange places he's never heard of, and most of the notes Haseo attached to the area words don't make any sense. "Forest of Pain" next to Hidden Forbidden Sin Realm, "Bug Codes" next to Competing Blue-Silver Phoenix, "Outer Dungeon" with Hidden Forbidden Hades, and a completely unhelpful triplet of periods next to Hidden Forbidden Battlefield.

Giving up on Haseo's area list, Kenji scrolls through the extensive collection of area words to find an easy area like the one he visited with Kaede. He's spotted by the first group of goblin knights, but with the difference in level it takes four hits – one blocked by a goblin's shield before he remembers charged strikes – to defeat all three. He approaches the next group more cautiously, killing the first with the surprise attack, and then remembering to practice reflex arts. Kenji remembers reading about a special attack called Rengeki, but kills the monsters too quickly to even try reaching the combo counter necessary to unleash one.

A _twang_ sound flits through the earphones integrated into the M2D, and Kenji reads the text messaging from a player named Silabus with sense of cautious curiosity.

"Hey! I thought Atoli said you were going to be taking a break during your first year of college.  
>"Um . . . not that I'm saying you should leave, I'm just surprised to see you after all this time.<br>"Canard's been going great, you'd be proud of the guild.  
>"Want to meet? They have a new set of monster crab quests."<p>

Kenji lets out a slow breath. Actually, this is good, it gives him plenty of information. First: Haseo started college and is probably in his first year. Second: apparently Haseo's been relatively absent from everybody in The World due to this break, but were some people more left out than others? Did he see Kaede more than Silabus before he finished high school? Third: Silabus and Haseo used to go on quests together, and he seems to know Haseo. Is it too well for Kenji to bluff his way through? Fourth: they were members of a guild named Canard, but how involved were they? Was Silabus invited into the guild for the Demon Palace tournament, or is he a senior member to Haseo?

_Gaahhh, this game is fun but it brings up too many questions_. Kenji grabs fists of his onyx-black hair in aggravation. _At least I didn't have trouble rerouting Haseo's email and contact information to mine, just in case something happens_. It would've looked suspicious if the real player behind Haseo got home to see "you've started a new line of quests" sitting in his inbox. If anybody has his personal email . . . there's nothing Kenji can do about that. He takes a deep breath and thinks quickly. What might Haseo do, based on what he knows now? Well, the way Silabus is asking his questions, he's expecting an answer.

"I thought I'd log on when I have extra time between classes and work.  
>"Sorry about the quest, but I'd rather not today."<p>

Hopefully that will pass. Short and to the point, just like the few times he found videos of Haseo talking. Of course, Haseo's demeanor changed significantly in the videos when he was the PKK "The Terror of Death" to the recent videos in the palace tournaments in 2020. On the other hand, how he acted in tournaments could have been very different from general adventures. How terse Haseo tends to be is still something Kenji has to guess.

_Twang!_  
>"Alright, I get it.<br>"I was just wondering if you wanted to do anything.  
>"Level grinding's been getting slow.<br>"Almost everybody in Canard wants to see you.  
>"A couple more than others."<p>

Kenji squints at the screen. _A couple more than others? What's that mean?_ Out of curiosity, he glances at Haseo's friend list. For somebody who won every single palace tournament, he'd expect a lot more than 24 friends. Well, what next? Maybe one of those many underdeveloped skills?

"Why hello, Haseo," a silky, feminine voice purrs from his right. It has an almost sensual quality to it, but there's also an undertone of haughty tease that ticks him off.

Kenji closes the menus and glances right to see a slender, dark-skinned woman in a scant purple-and-dark-metal costume, with a pauldron that looks like a black-and-yellow spider on her left shoulder. She's striding forward with a smirk on her face, so he's not sure if she knows Haseo or if she just scanned him to get his name. He settles for facing her with crossed arms, brows knitted together.

"Oh, not happy to see me? After all this time, how close we were . . ?" she begins to grind out as she draws an s-shaped long sword lined with spikes. "You couldn't just leave me there, it couldn't end like that . . ."

The woman begins to cackle, driving Kenji a step back. "Okay, Miss Forgot-My-Meds. I think you need to go get lost in another area. They may even have caves dark enough for nutsos like you."

She gives another maniacal laugh, faintly-sultry yet mainly-wild that makes him picture an asylum inmate, wrapped in a straightjacket and locked in a padded room. "Ooh, he's finally learned to talk back," she croons, enjoying things far too much. "Come on, Haseo! Let's **play**!"

She charges forward, the background music fading into a combat tune. That doesn't suit Kenji at all – he knows roughly how combat works, but against another player he's not sure he has the reflexes. And Haseo was supposed to be a master fighter. After all that talking, he's _still_ not sure if he's actually supposed to know her, but one thing he's sure of: _I can't lose to her_.

She continues running at him, sword already held back for a wide slice. Haseo snaps into his quick select inventory and activates something he was sure to stock a full load of: smoke screens.

The battle music disappears and both he and the psycho disappear into billowing mist. He slips around, looking for others and relieved to see nobody. His anxiety builds while he keeps behind her and waits for the smoke bomb to wear off. Strangely, she isn't ranting like he expected – instead, she's gone silent, staring slack-jawed at the center of the smoke screen.

The smoke still suffocating the area, she finally regains her tongue. "Haseo . . . Haseo _ran_?"

This more than anything else convinces Kenji that she actually _did_ know him, and that he apparently never backed down. _Great, one of those 'never surrender, never retreat' idiots_. Tense seconds pass as the smoke billows, before apparently its timer runs down and it blows away in a second. Now he just can't resist.

"Sneak attack!"

The crazy woman goes flying into a pillar beside a bridge, smashing off the side like a limp doll. Haseo holds up his reverse-gripped daggers, surprised at the high numbers that rose on his strike and her impact with the stone post. _I must have a level advantage. Good, that'll help balance out my lack of practice_.

She screams like a woman possessed, racing at him with sword held high. He waits until she closes just within two paces, then bursts forward with the first quick still he sees. "Chaotic Strike!"

Haseo surges forward, smashing her upwards and then leaping up into the air, slicing at her with a flurry of cuts before a final double-slice that sends her crashing into the earth.

She's remarkably fast to recover despite bouncing once, already up on her feet and bracing behind her sword before his feet hit the ground. His action bar appears over his head, racing from empty to full. Then it's Haseo's turn to go onto the defensive when the lanky woman begins a brutal series of swings. They crash against his guard, but all of them are regular attacks. She growls in frustration at his turtling, and hangs back to charge a strong blow.

"Reaper's Dance!"

He rises in a column of shimmering black and red, the woman being pushed back and the whole game seeming to slow down. Once there's about a meter between them, Haseo reaches back, his daggers disappearing before he draws a huge black scythe lined with teeth like a chainsaw. He bursts forward, making a wide swing trailing black energy that draws her up like a shanty into a tornado, the swing completing a full three-hundred-sixty and continuing for another full slash on his forward half before he rises up a little more and brings the scythe above him, plowing it straight down.

The dark-skinned woman smashes into the ground and a pool of black energy with wisps of red opens under her like a churning vortex, making a partial turn before massive claw-like projections rise up out of the ground, then fly straight through the center, tearing gouges through the ground. Haseo descends gracefully, the mad woman fading from existence like a shadow with a light passing over it. The area flickers, but Kenji passes it off as a used M2D.

A few breaths pass, a part in the back of Kenji's mind curious as to why a video game is making him feel so winded before the main portion finally rears up. Kenji lifts both of his hands fisted into the air and shouts one simple sentence:

"That was _awe_some!"

…

Holographic screens blink with data, scrolling code one after another. Zelkova moves dexterously, hands dancing between the three holographic keyboards floating before him on the bridge of the Tartarus, eyes flickering from one to the next of the twenty screens floating before him. One displays an IP routing address, MAC hardware address, and precise date and time of connection. Another point of the electronic route opens below, and then another. Zelkova leans back, crossing his white-clad arms as he looks at them. "Hmm, these aren't usual . . ."

…

Author's Note: many kinds of bread in Japan are sweet, more like challah than standard wheat. To somebody adjusted to that kind of palate, breads like rye or sourdough might even seem unpleasant.

"He makes it out and the pushers forcing people in move almost too soon" refer to the people who – yes, it is their official job – to push people like sardines into the subway trains.

A few more small changes have been made, like relabeling "level 3" to "Blademaster", because that seems to me to better stick with "rule of cool".

So . . . who else thinks Kenji's just about to find how deep the rabbit hole goes? Place your bets . . .


	4. Old New Friends

**Second Shot**

Chapter 4:

Old New Friends

". . . And then he says, 'I'm begging you, please establish context before speaking to me'," Kenji finishes with only partially stifled laughter, Kaede chuckling daintily behind her gloved hand with him. Kenji admires with a smile, _She's so cute when she laughs_.

The pair look at the treasure chest sitting in front of the beast statue, a moment of silence spreading before them before both simultaneously gesture a hand to it and offer, "Go ahead." They both pause a second, then laugh.

Kenji pauses to enjoy the laughter of his companion, and she has the initiative in proffering, "No, you did most of the work in this temple."

"Not at all," Kenji counters politely. "I just hit them from behind, you were the one who held the Gaze Hoplites' attention almost all three floors."

"Oh, no," she politely declines with a demure bow. "Your broadsword skills were what allowed us to break through them so easily." She gives another smile, though this one takes a more pointed quality, a hint of cunning. "And besides, you've been so gallant today."

Kenji blushes, turning his eyes to the floor. Although he knows nobody in his old crowd would ever use the word . . . nobody'd ever called him gallant before, and it feels good. Unable to muster up any further argument, he steps forward and opens the chest, obtaining a Rough Monarch. Nothing terribly useful on its own – Haseo already has a tricked-out armor set – but spending time with Kaede is fun.

They take the teleporter back to Breg Epona, and Kenji still feels so good that he quashes his urge for flight when a new person comes running at him shouting, "Haseo!"

Kenji cursors over the player, a rotund beastman in red named Gaspard. The short character races up to Haseo faster than expected and throws his arms around, reflexively causing Kenji to step back and throw off the stranger. "Get off of me!"

"Haseo!" Kaede chastizes, and Kenji immediately flinches back, abashed.

"I started to worry what happened after you didn't log in since last summer," Gaspard excitedly chatters. He's rather childish, but the innocent enthusiasm is something that Kenji can't truly fault.

He shrugs. "Well, you know. School, work . . ." Technically it's true for both him and the real player behind Haseo. Kenji knows he's not a saint by any means, but he dislikes lying. Sticking to the truth is easier to remember, anyway.

"Well, you're back! I've seen you online a couple times the past week, but you never stop by Canard or Shop Acorn like you used to."

Kaede glances at him, and Kenji fumbles for a moment. "I'm sorry, Gaspard, a lot's changed lately and I was trying for a new start of sorts."

The dog-nosed beastman grumps, but the show only lasts for a few moments before he breaks back into a pleased smile. "Well, you're back now. You can come back and visit everybody in the guild. You might even get to see Silabus if he gets back with his team soon enough!"

Kenji starts to sweat, but Kaede smiles and answers before he can even consider a way out. "It would be a pleasure to see the others." Kenji manages a strangled sound that sounds he distorts just into something just barely more like curiosity than choking, and she glances at him. "After your offer for the . . ." Her expression dims, "ex-Moon Tree members to use Canard until Zelkova-sama's guild could be restored . . . It has been a few days since I have seen them. Would a few minutes be all right, Haseo-sam—Haseo-san?"

"Sure," he finds himself blurting out while his higher brain functions are still busy with 'panic' and 'find an escape route'. Haseo sighs and he rubs one palm over his face. "It's not like I _really_ want to avoid them," he admits. "I just don't want to get swamped." He avoids making eye contact with Kaede and looks straight at Gaspard, who is doing his best to look up at him with his best 'begging stray dog' look. Unfortunately for him, Kenji knew plenty of alley animals back in Kyoto, and remembers more than a few people calling him one of them. After taking in a breath and standing straight for effect, he firmly says, "_One_ minute."

Kenji spots movement out of the corner of his eye from Kaede, but Gaspard just smiles wider and gives a brief laugh. "That's the same Haseo as always. Okay, no long tour of the guild, then. I guess that's for the better, most of the units are out training." Gaspard turns around and the two adults follow him through the arcing main street of Breg Epona. More than a few people make eye contact, but none leave their conversations.

The looming doors of the guild area sparkle like gilded marble – appropriate, given the prevalence of marble in this city and the high-level guilds that lie behind. A trickle of players brush past to and from their own guild, and Gaspard and Kaede both disappear into the doors. Kenji attempts to enter, assuming it will automatically pull him into Canard's guild area, when instead a new window opens in the GUI with six guilds listed. _Haseo must've been a lot more popular than I suspected_, Kenji muses before selecting Canard. Then he gives a silent prayer of thanks that Gaspard mentioned the guild's name.

A yawning, cavernous space of polished marble and dark woods lie beyond. A wide entry foyer easily ten meters square stretches before the double doors, with a throne-like pedestal at the end before a set of stairs that appears to lead up and to the right and left. Sitting on the pedestal is a diminuitive pig-like figure decked out in lime green, wearing a darker green leather jingasa – Kenji hides a chuckle at the fact that the wide, flattened conical hat makes it look like it's liable to tip over.

As Kenji catches up to Gaspard and Kaede, the green-clad pig figure stands and gives a polite bow. "Welcome to Canard, the guild dedicated to helping beginning and intermediate players. I am Guide Grunty."

Gaspard starts laughing, drawing both Kaede and Kenji to glance at him curiously. Still looking at Guide Grunty, he doesn't notice, instead taking another step closer as he laughs. "Remember when we made you guildmaster, Haseo? Back before Silabus took the job again? You came in to Death Grunty and you two were at each other's throats all the time."

He laughs heartily and Kaede joins in for a chuckle. Kenji forces himself to chuckle along if awkwardly, feeling something whither inside. Those sorts of moments – the silly moments between friends, which he assumes Gaspard's talking about – are the sorts of moments he most treasured with his sworn brothers back in Kyoto. They were the moments that kept him alive despite having no mother, the moments that made him feel like a human instead of another criminal in a cesspool neighborhood.

"Is something the matter, Haseo-san?"

Kenji keeps his eyes on Guide Grunty, uncertain if he'd be able to keep a straight face if he looked Kaede in the eye. "I'll be okay. I was just remembering where I grew up. We . . . had so few opportunities for fun or stupid things like this. It just made me think, how many things did I miss out on?"

He feels an arm around him and looks down to see Gaspard there. Despite his vehemence before, he can't muster up the urge to push him away this time. The beast man follows Haseo's gaze to Guide Grunty, and after a quiet moment speaks, gingerly like a jeweler looking over a fragile crown. "Thinking about that time you were fighting for Shino?"

Kenji doesn't have any idea what Gaspard means by Shino, but the weight of the statement makes him feel a lot like his old home in Kyoto. "Kind of," he breathes. "And yet, despite all of . . . if it wasn't for everything that's happened, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have met you," he speaks, intending to refer to the simple plural but finding himself unable to look towards Kaede. "Those things, for all of the good and ill in them, brought us here where we are, together."

A weighty moment passes before Gaspard steps back. "Sorry, I just got a text from Saburou, it's my turn to man the shop." He suddenly brightens. "Hey, want to come along? You were the one who invited her to Canard. You knew each other from before the tournaments, maybe this'll be like a happy reunion that I was kinda hoping for when I asked you two in here."

Kenji quickly checks Haseo's friend list. Sure enough, Saburou is online, though marked with "busy". He's interested in some of these other people, but the gravity of the conversation and his own memories has drained his energy and he just doesn't feel up to playing somebody else's Haseo. "Listen, I think I'm just going to head into an area on my own."

Now Gaspard looks concerned. "Haseo . . . I know you did a lot of fighting on your own, but you've got a lot of friends now. You shouldn't slip into your old habits."

Kenji is momentarily confused before he puts together what he knows about Haseo. _Never retreats, tendency to fight probably enhanced when he's aggravated. This guy must have been exhausted all the time_. "No, I . . . I just want to be alone to think for a little while."

Gaspard doesn't seem pleased, but he at least he accepts it. "Well, okay. Just don't forget about us, okay? Remember what you said during the preliminaries for the Sage Palace tournament. We're all in this together." He looks up, suddenly startled. "All right, I'm coming!"

Gaspard dashes out in a cross between a run and waddle. Kenji departs the fancy guild foyer and heads to the Chaos Gate at a more sedate pace. It takes him a little while to realize that Kaede is still at his side. "Kaede-san. I'm sorry, did you want anything?"

She starts to shake her head, then stops. "Gaspard has known you for much longer than I, Haseo-san. It . . . simply makes me sad to know that you've suffered through so much before we met."

Kenji forces back the shadows of two years and, despite a jolt of shyness, forces himself to look her in the eye despite whatever expression it may betray on his face. "I'm here and you're here now, and that's what's important, isn't it?"

She straightens again, the corners of her mouth quirking up. "Of course, Haseo-kun." She bows politely, gives her salutations, and teleports away through the Chaos Gate. Haseo is about to head to a random field when a _twang_ runs from his earphones.

"Come to the Tartarus' bridge in Netslum.  
>It concerns your IP address."<p>

Kenji raises an eyebrow under his M2D. He'd learned quite a bit about The World, and didn't know that anybody could send an anonymous text message. But who—

"Grk!"

Belatedly, Kenji remembers what the mention of IP address could mean – if somebody's been hacking through registry or internet pathing data, then they might be able to follow from "Haseo" to the router in his building. If whoever it was knew Haseo, it's pretty certain that even if Haseo used school computers and internet cafes that he'd still be in one general area of Japan, and it probably wouldn't be Toshima, Tokyo.

_Tartarus, Tartarus . . . who would name their place after the Greek name for hell?_ Breg Epona fades away and Netslum fades in around him, the place somehow looking darker and drearier than before. A moaning rattle emanates from deep in the pit on the other side of the Chaos Gate, and Kenji cringes. _Why did I have to remind myself of Tartarus and hell before coming here?_ He swings around to the sliding door leading into the main crossroads into the labyrinthine city. Hacked users and rogue AIs wander the streets above and below, bridges spanning in a confused mishmash that would give any urban planner nightmares.

After following the main street for a while, Kenji slows down. The real Haseo might have known exactly how to get up to the 'Tartarus' bridge', but Kenji doesn't have a clue where to start. Even having logged in here a few times, he's still unsure how to navigate the Netslum. Then something purple catches his eye in the crowds. Maybe it's the muted or mishmashed shapes in everything else, but the solid purple shape seizes his attention just before it disappears in the crowd down the street. He breaks into a run, dodging between brown-cloaked and other strange characters wandering the lower street.

He's afraid he's lost it when there's another flash of purple disappearing around a corner. Kenji sprints as fast as he can go, practicing his champion crowd-weaving like he was back in high school. He twirls around a long-coated person with a fishbowl as a head, the eel inside watching him even as the body walks in the direction of the Chaos Gate. The street here is much more empty, only a few characters (all equally strange), and for a moment Kenji despairs of figuring out where to go when he spots the brief solid shape of purple disappearing around another corner.

The dashing game of cat-and-mouse continues for a while, continuing farther higher into the strange city until Haseo finally reaches an empty room, only one sliding door on his right and the low, open doorway behind him. Leaving that behind, he opens the sliding door to get his first good look at the purple shape finally still. A pale grunty with a jingasa just like Guide Grunty, the solid purple shape that he kept on spotting in the distance. A beat passes before the grunty turns quietly around and then dashes remarkably quickly down the bridge between his building and a towering edifice that looks more like stone and glass than the other towers. Haseo is only a moment behind.

When he passes through the dark doorway, the outside area unloads and a different space opens up ahead of him, and Haseo gets the strange sense that he's just been teleported to a different area of the Netslum. He's in a dark, long hallway with a strip of pulsing light zipping along the center of the floor from the door down into the darkness. He follows it for a while until he comes across stairs rising up. Keeping close to the line with the spot of light dashing down, he ascends what feels like a couple of meters, where it flattens out and opens up, a faint curve of the wall to his left and right making him think that it's probably a huge circular room.

A snap echoes through the darkness, and suddenly shutters shoot open. A room at least ten meters across lies before him, some strange sort of bronze statue with some sort of knob floating in the center. Standing beside it is a boy with hair blue as Boragian starflowers, with small, golden horns extending from the top of his head. He wears a traditional white garb of the same general style as Kaede, though with sleeves and a little more casual. "Hello. My name is Zelkova."

"Oh. Hi, Haseo," Kenji gestures to himself. He instantly recognizes Zelkova's name – Kaede mentioned him often. Their first conversation about him serving as a sort of surrogate child also remains prominent in his mind.

Zelkova smiles and tilts his head, and despite how much the gesture _should_ be innocent like Gaspard, something about it makes Kenji feel vulnerable. "I've been watching for a while, and you're an interesting one." When Kenji fails to find anything to say, Zelkova straightens and moves on. "You've been spending a lot of time with Kaede over the past couple of weeks."

Kenji stares down at the ground by his feet, feeling a flutter in his stomach. "Yeah." He purses his lips, trying to think of what excuses he might possibly have to make. Details he picked from his time masquerading with the others flashes by, and he crosses his arms to try to hold down the angry indignance growing to a simmer in his stomach.

Zelkova 'hm's and walks closer, pausing to look him up and down, then paces a quarter turn around Haseo. "You're still mired in the fear of the three years commuted from your sentence?"

Kenji flinches like he'd been struck despite the calm, almost innocent tone of the question, clenching his teeth and holding his arms in front of himself. Only with great difficulty does he open his eyes and look back at Zelkova. The panic doesn't just pick up speed, it jumps the rails and crashes there, leaving him feeling trapped and numb. "I thought we were going to dance around that for a while."

Zelkova shrugs and paces easily back towards where he was standing. "I didn't take that route with Matsu, and I'm not going to do it with you. Unfortunately, it's your preoccupation. I could tell we needed to get that out of the way. I've been watching for a while, Arakawa-san. I know what Kaede's been doing since she joined Moon Tree, and if I really wanted it to stop I'd have done so years ago." Now he turns around and looks straight at Haseo, his expression now rather like a mask, not the light and curious-child-like sort that seems like should be on a person of his short stature. "And I've been watching you for a while, if I thought you were going to hurt her, I would've made sure you never got the chance."

The white-clad player lets his head lilt to the side slightly, and despite the youth-like character design Kenji feels more like he's being presided over by his father than stared at by a child. Finally, he straightens. "People play The World for a lot of different reasons. Some use it as a release, they treat others in a way they believe they want to but could never get away with in the real world."

Kenji nods. _Trolls_.

"Many people try to use it to replace or fill in something that they don't have in the real world." His gaze shifts from steady to something a little more hard but not quite piercing. "Based on the growth of your time spent playing and how it's leveled off, I'm pretty sure that you spend almost every free minute away from your school and job in The World." Kenji nods. "You're missing something that you're trying to find in The World."

Kenji stares at the lines of racing light in the floor, unable to muster up the courage to admit or fish for an excuse to deny.

"Arakawa-san, you've fast built friendships with Kaede and a few others." He crosses his arms and taps one finger for a moment. "Kaede feels abandoned by her son. She would phrase it the other way around, and both might have some truth, but once I came to understand this I decided I wouldn't want to make her feel that way again. You've become close to her, and that means I'm close too."

Kenji's first impulse is to protest that how he's close to Kaede is probably very different from how Zelkova is, but just before he opens his mouth he stops. In a sense, the guy's probably right. His shoulders fall and presses a palm over his eye. "I was kind of a screwed up kid, so I probably don't have the best frame of reference."

"I think that could be said by most," Zelkova points out with a surprisingly certain, knowing tone.

"Yeah, most people probably have a better idea about how real relationships work. Hell, I hardly even had a real family." Kenji looks back up, and Zelkova is still standing there patiently. "When I was 6, my mother died of childbirth complications. My sister, she was going to be named Akemi, died too. Pops . . ."

Zelkova nods. "2012, heart failure. At 16, you were mandated to move into a short-term orphanage and started a long list of curfew violations, runaway, and petty criminal charges." He doesn't go on. Kenji's sure he could have – his defiance of authority had a long paper trail that was still public record.

"Yeah, that's the problem with government networks, they have holes. I didn't want to go, and nobody really _wanted_ to take me. I just . . . fell through the cracks." Kenji stops, unable to decide how to possibly describe Shinichi and the rest of the gang. Yes, they ended up drawing him into computer theft, but they were also there for him when his father died, when nobody in a suit had time for him. When everybody else said, "be a man, don't cry", Shinichi was there beside him to say, "you lost your mother when you should've been getting a sister, now you can't even see your father when you graduate" and then cried with him.

"You do many different things in The World. You explore random areas. You play quests. You practice alchemy and make potions," Zelkova states as if reading a diagnosis sheet. "But whenever Kaede sends you an invite, you drop what you're doing and join her. What exactly are your intentions?"

Kenji looks down, but this time it's more to search for an answer than avoid eye contact. The floor yields no answers, and despite all of the thought about it he'd done on long train rides and other moments he isn't sure. "I really wish I could tell you. Most people have mothers, sisters and brothers, a clique or two, and at least a couple friendly neighbors. When most guys were getting girlfriends and going to clubs and studying through high school, I was trying to figure out how to live on my own, more often than not on the street. When most people were waving goodbye to their mothers as they went off to college, I was cracking computers." Kenji bites his lip, mind starting to whirl. _And after I got out of prison, it was all I could do to not think about how my family . . . all the people back from Kyoto. We were always there for each other, and now all I know is that I miss them_. "I don't know if . . ." _What exactly _am_ I looking for?_

Kenji sits straight down on the stone floor and spends the next three hours with Zelkova . . .

…

Author's Note: Canon depictions in both Roots and G.U. indicate that the guild grunty changes depending on who the guild leader is. Since the names like "mello grunty" or "death grunty" aren't at all creative, I decided to stick with the same pattern here. It would've probably been Onnaiyaku Grunty if I didn't have an obligatory Japanese filter, since it's more of a stationary host than true guide, but either way it's still based on the most likely guild master to stay after Haseo decided to drop off activity: Silabus.

Boragian starflowers are edible flowers with a blue color just a little darker than Zelkova's hair. They're rather unusual and not often used outside Europe and the Mediterranean region, but I figure that somebody working for Kanto's largest catering company would at least know of them. It was either that or "icing", but since icing can be literally any shade and color under the sun I thought I'd pick something more exotic and specific.


	5. Cloudbreak

**Second Shot**

Chapter 5:

Cloudbreak

Saturday, 2021 December 24

"It starts in two hours! How could you have forgotten where it is, prettyboy?"

"It's somewhere in Chuo-ku, Sosuke," Kenji snarls. His arms twitch, and were his hands not on the steering wheel of a moving van he would have struck the junior cook. Temper was never Kenji's strong suit. "You've already got today up on my planner, pull it up and give me the directions."

The scraggly-brown-haired youth from Kansai scrolls as quickly as he can get the pocket pad to go, finally finding the job. 15:00 – College of Nursing, 10-1 Akaishi-cho. A square icon indicates a map saved to the pad and he taps it hard with his thumb, minimizing the day planner and opening a street map of Tokyo.

"Hurry up," Kenji snaps, shaking a fist at a passenger car zipping into his lane and then farther along the city highway. "Drop it into the holder and put your seat belt back on, you're not checking the back anymore. I am _not_ going to be the one to tell Takeda that you got us pulled over and ticketed like your last driver."

Sosuke slams the pocket pad into the slightly undersized holder screwed into the dashboard. The young apprentice cook tries to glare at the reminder of being ticketed, but doesn't have the backbone to keep it on. Kenji glances at the map on the pocket pad screen and changes lanes, pressing the acceleration pedal just a little too hard. Sosuke falls into the left door and pushes himself back. "Hey!"

…

Kenji unrolls the silicone tube, letting the hot raclette cheese drop precisely onto the white porcelain serving platter next to the potatoes. The clamor in the auditorium leaves a pressing sense in the room like humidity on a hot day, but strangely seems to add a private sense by drowning out any conversation farther than a meter or two away. He looks up at a trio of younger students, two males and one female. She yawns and rubs and raises a hand to rub at her right eye before stopping just short and lowering it.

The shapely young woman pauses at a pan of potato-cheese gratin to his left before side-stepping to the cheese-and-ham he's restocking. "Hard at work as always Arakawa-san?" she asks, looking down at the plate.

"You remember me?" He blurts, then steps back with a blush. He always enjoyed talking with the patrons when at more casual catering events, and Pascal's Service is this college's regular catering company, almost twenty jobs there in the year Kenji has been with the company. Kenji remembers the internship disappointment that took up a lot of their conversation the last event they spoke at. "How's your internship going? I heard that you were in Doctor Miyamoto's research group on Doll Syndrome before that faded away, but you didn't mention the next job."

She brightens immediately, her smile seeming warmer and less forced. Then she sets into an obviously false pout that still leaves her looking extremely cute. "That's right. The funding was cut after almost all of the patients woke up and I had to apply to a general physical therapy internship at Kinai Hospital. That's what I'm focusing in now." A few shades of genuine despondency creep into her visage. "I was especially hoping to see Shino before she checked out of out-patient processing, but she was gone before I even got to her hospital."

Kenji tries to chuckle without sounding either condescending or fake. "I understand, Kubo-san."

Kubo Moe forces a smile that doesn't reach her pretty honey-brown eyes and picks up a clean plate, though the façade only makes Kenji even more concerned. "You look like they've been running you ragged lately, Arakawa-san. I thought only us med students were supposed to burn the candle at both ends."

He gives a slight bow in thanks. "I've had a pretty crazy few days, but during it I had a good talk with somebody who reminded me that I wouldn't be where I am now if it wasn't for the things that happened to me."

"Hm," she grants, though her posture lightens and the corners of her mouth quirk up ever so slightly. "That's true, I guess." Her eyes drift down to the platter, and he's about to follow her gaze down when he pauses at her neck. A bruise extends from below the pale blue blazer.

"Hey, don't forget to finish stocking, prettyboy."

Kenji snarls back at Choujuurou with a speed and strength that would have made a lion proud, drawing at least thirty stares. Kenji backs up with his face turning red and slinks away, wishing all the while he could just melt into his shoes and hide. At least half an hour passes with every cook who either saw or heard the incident making sure to rib him about it, but things eventually wind down.

After wheeling out the last batch of soup, Sosuke barges out of the kitchen and almost trips over Kenji. After explaining that a food cart with Master Chef Pascal's cell phone on it was accidentally taken from the kitchen, the two split to check through the busy auditorium. Kenji pauses at a knot of students and pats the pocket with his e-pad, wishing he had Pascal's personal cell number so he could just call it and get the hunt over with quickly, but seeing it in use is the closest he's ever come. He's about to change course when a commotion of low, 'oooh's of trepidation come from the med students. Kenji spots the pretty girl from before, with one of the womanizing seniors following her. ". . . Keh. You can't answer me like that. My father owns Nerima General, you're not gonna have a better proposal than Sasaki."

She yawns and turns away from the senior student, who grabs her by the shoulder. "C'mon, Moe, what's holding you back? Your sister who has better grades with her math degree than you, and a richer fiancee than all of your last boyfriends?" Moe lets out a deep breath, and pulls tiredly away, but the senior tightens his grip, causing her to flinch. "What are you worried about, your idiot pop who made you give up captain of the swim team? I could have him talked to—"

Kenji forcefully steps between them, hands fisted, his blood nearing a boil. This senior had always been a jackass, and how he's crossed the line. "What are you, a doctor-in-training or some piss-ant high schooler?"

The surrounding students draw back a step with shock clear on all of them. Even Sasaki draws back a step, though he only seems to be drawing himself up to his full height. A breath passes, and then his features school into a condescending self-assurance. "And what are you, cook's aide?"

Kenji takes a deep step to bring them nose-to-nose, but resists the instinctive urge to deck him right there. "Somebody man enough to work his own way through the world. _I_ don't rely on my father to do everything for me."

A few beats of silence pass through the immediate crowd, but after a few moments to hold his collected expression, Sasaki humphs. "I know your type. You're just putting up a front because _your_ father can't do anything."

Kenji doesn't even realize he's moved before Sasaki is sprawled on the ground, nose bleeding. The other students react quickly, and four people have Kenji by the arms before he can even take another step. The cook-in-training grinds his teeth but forces the red haze away from his vision, then glares down at Sasaki as the college senior pushes himself back up. "You know what?" Kenji finally states, forcing himself into a calm and even tone. "My father's been dead for years. When _you_ walk into his office and see yours slumped over his desk, and realize that you can't hide in his shadow anymore . . . when you start living your own life without trampling others . . . then you can come to me and stand on equal footing."

Kenji pulls himself roughly from the gaggle of students grappling him, sending one med student stumbling. Most simply let him go, shocked at his speech. To his left seems to be a younger med-school freshman gaping like a fish, and hesitantly releasing his right is Kubo Moe. Kenji yanks his arm from the freshman and straightens his cook's overalls to give him time to let his blood come down from its boil. "I can't stand people who just look down on everybody else."

Moe smiles in a manner expressing weariness, relief, and something else he can't identify before her pretty face settles back into 'tired'. "You remind me of . . . somebody I knew once." Kenji swallows, unable to decide how to try to talk to her, then starts heading back towards the temporary kitchens. Moe follows, more to get away from the crowds than actually trying to stay near the cook-in-training. She drifts towards the soups and yawns widely.

Kenji slows down and pulls the silver-plated case open. "Sorry about back there. I wasn't intending for that to sound like it was all about me, making fun of my parents is a bit of a berserk trigger," he admits with a faint blush. "So, busy days?"

"No kidding. When it's not school, they're scheduling me for long, weird hours at my internship. I was hoping on getting some more sleep over the Christmas break, but then doctor Kobayashi has to come up and surprise me with 'Hey, Kubo-chan, you're not going steady with anyone. Cover for Kodaira'." She picks up a plastic spoon and then her eyes shoot open. She drops her spoon into her bowl and presses a hand over her face. "Please tell me I didn't just say that aloud."

"My lips are sealed," Kenji states with exaggerated solemness, holding one hand over his heart. Moe giggles and he smiles back. _If I'm going to be called the company prettyboy, the least I should have is enjoying the evening with somebody pretty to compensate_. He adds, "Don't worry about it, people used to talk to me about their troubles all the time. Actually feels good, like people trust me."

Kenji flinches, a flicker of the dozens of people he used to hang out with in Kyoto passing through his mind's eye. He lets out a long breath and mentally shakes his head. _Stop reminding yourself what you _used_ to have_.

She is looking directly at Kenji when he looks up, but seems to decide against asking him what he just flinched for. "I guess I shouldn't complain. I'm on salary contract, so I'm not getting anything from the overtime, but not all med students have paying jobs and I need everything I can get. Especially since they're terminating the contract this year. I'm going to have nothing to do until the internships in April."

Moe stretches tiredly and Kenji tries to keep his eyes away from the way the front of her blazer strains, or her the way the faint curl to her hair gives a beautiful sort of wavy effect that catches the light in the repurposed auditorium. "Are you sure you don't want to set aside the food and just go home to rest?"

She shakes her head. "No, I enjoy my time away."

…

Kenji wakes up to loud, irritating pop music and twists, tumbling himself out of his hammock. He lands on the spare bedding he stores directly underneath, and crawls the half meter to his radio alarm clock so he can turn it off. He stands and checks the date in the display. Monday, the slowest day in the company. Just to be sure, he stands up and walks to his pocket tablet and checks the schedule. Nothing today, prep work tomorrow for the Higurashis on Wednesday which will almost certainly require cleanup on Thursday, then nothing until Friday. Tapping into another window, he checks his email to find sixteen unread emails, two of them from CC Corp:

Dear Haseo,  
>Thank you for your regular patronage of 'The World'.<br>You have fulfilled necessary conditions and may travel to Fomoraig.  
>You may now select Fomoraig from the To Town menu at a Chaos Gate.<br>We hope you enjoy your new adventures.

The next one just notes a new package of game updates, so Kenji browses through his other emails while waiting for the computer to boot and bring up The World.

…

Massive cliffs reminding him of British Dover dominate the skyline of the fortress city. The Chaos Gate rests on a stone pier jutting out over churning seas, a dark sky of roiling clouds overhead with lightning occasionally flickering amidst the billowing darkness. Wind howls mournfully through the streets, sparsely populated by high-leveled characters running from one store building to the next.

Kenji takes in the foreboding atmosphere, impressed at the level of work in the spooky settings. Then a titanic figure in the most gaudy golden armor he's ever seen charges through the dark to the Chaos Gate.

He stops as soon as he spots Haseo, flashing a grin that would've seemed overbearing on a television advertisement and somehow sparkles despite the lack of strong ambient light. "Oh, he of fair eyes! Behold, I am the champion of mystery, knight of passion, crusader of justice!"

"Piros!"

"The!"

"Third!"

He hunches down from his posing, rubbing his palms together and causing sparks to fly. "They say that the hateful Tri-edge has been vanquished, but I know the truth! A new Sign has been found, a desecration of Surtsaeger!"

"Man," Haseo remarks while rubbing the back of his neck as he looks the gaudily-armored man up and down. "You don't do anything small, do you?" He shifts track, trying to figure out what he meant by sign. "I don't suppose this could've been an easter egg that just went unnoticed for a while?"

Racoucious laughter peals out, frightening him more than the psycho spider-themed woman who attacked him his first week in the game. Haseo takes the moment to check his friend list and feels no consolation at seeing Piros the Third in the friend list. The laughter finally dies down and Piros raises a hand with one finger extended. "Well, that is a possibility given the few people who frequent this server, but nevertheless! We must investigate! Tri-edge shall be brought to his just desserts!"

"Please," Haseo waves a hand off, also trying to make sure Piros stays at least arm's reach from him. "I've had enough of desserts with the Kirijo Group yesterday." He stops, wondering why that was the first thing to come to mind. "Why drag me into this, anyway? Go find this 'Sign' yourself!"

"Perish the thought that I should abandon my friend to the cruel mercies of the despicable Tri-edge!" A _twang_ flits through the headset and a 'party invitation' window appears. Piros then pauses and leans down to look Haseo in the eye. "Hmm, actually, there is something different about you . . ."

Haseo springs back, waving a hand in warding and yelping, "I guess there's no arguing with that kind of logic, let's go!"

Piros straightens and brings his fists to his hips with a loud clang. "Ha ha ha ha ha! Then let us away! To Hidden Forbidden Massif!"

…

Author's Notes: There actually is a real nursing school at the given location in east-central Tokyo, but the real one focuses on those pursuing a Bachelor's degree (or equivalent). Of course, who's to say that a parallel school wouldn't expand into the lower tier of medical development to expand its money pool as time marches on in the .hackverse?

Kubo's first doctor Miyamoto is named after the Japanese mathematician Miyamoto Tetsuya who invented the numeric puzzle KenKen.

In Japan, Christmas is considered a minor holiday, many businesses do not even close. However, the 24th (Christmas Eve) is considered a "romantic's holiday" and is frequently used for dates. It's also frequent that those 'known not to be dating' are scheduled into that time, and often fall on the unfortunate meek office guy.

Fomoraig are a race (and can refer to their realm) of creatures in Irish mythology. In several senses, they parallel Greek Titans, though generally being creatures of the ocean, swamp, and coast rather than the rivers, fields, and forests of their rival gods. Surtsaeger is a compound deriving from Old Norse "Black" and "Sea".


	6. Crossing the Rubicon

**Second Shot**

Chapter 6:

Crossing the Rubicon

The blue transport rings fade away from Haseo and Piros, opening a bubble of air around the standard teleport point. Cracked obsidian spreads out in a circle around them, a twisting road extending into the dark lost ground. The ocean current seems fairly calm in the immediate vicinity, but what seems like kilometers above, Kenji can see the dim flickering of light that must be the same stormy seas as those by the root town.

Most of the area's light is provided by eels and other luminescent creatures swimming along the strange barrier of air under the water. Kenji takes a step forward, but Piros snaps his arm out, blocking his path. "This may very well be the lair of the hateful Tri-edge. We must take every precaution."

"Would you chill out? Nothing's going to happen," Kenji complains, hands fisting as a hot feeling between irritation and anger grows in his gut. As far as he knows, lost grounds aren't even combat areas. There are never any monsters, anyway, although he did read rumors of a player-versus-player fight at Coite Bodher. Walking past Piros, who presumably is already geared for combat, he takes a step forward and looks at the faintly undulating barrier of air and water around them. "Well, let's go."

They progress down the road, twisting through an arch of what looks like charred coral before opening back up into a volcanic rift. A huge slab of oxidized copper extends from the road and over the volcanic river, terminating before reaching the other side. On the end of the slab is a firery-red triangular mark somewhat like the Latin letter A. Kenji looks around for a little while before starting to turn back to Piros. "I don't get it, there's nothing—"

A flash of sickly purple later, and Piros' face takes on a startled expression before he falls to his knees with a clang, then all the way forward. The dark-skinned psycho from more than a month ago steps on top of him as if Piros is a pedestal, a manic grin splitting her face. In her hands is a new angular sword that looks like somebody haphazardly fused long bone shards together, but colored a sort of brown-red like rotting meat. "I'm back, dear Haseo. Now we can play I love you . . . to death!"

Haseo reaches behind his back, not bothering to hide the snarl on his face or suppress the angry heat in his gut. _I may not have liked him, but _nobody_ hurts my family, my friends, or my compatriots_. She starts to laugh as he draws his Spin Drakes, the customized scythes glinting from the bioluminescence in the ocean above them. He takes one step forward and she raises her sword . . .

"Healing Tonic!"

A pool of white and blue springs around Piros, sending white sparks and filling his hit points. He stands drunkenly, throwing off Bordeaux, and looks around. Haseo takes the distraction for all it's worth, sprinting forward. She deflects his first swing and he sends another dozen her way, sparks flying when their blades meet. As the two dance around each other, her longer sword slices into him several times before he finally manages to sink one of his curved blades into her midsection.

The double-digit numbers that rise make his stomach fall. _Crap, she's a lot stronger than last time_.

Bordeaux cackles. "More, Haseo! More!" She powers a surprisingly fast blow that sends him flying into the charred coral five meters away. She starts to pace closer to him, cracking an item over her blade to spread a green venom over its surface before Piros drives into her from the side.

"Foul Tri-edge! I have you at last!"

She smacks him with a powerful backhand taking twist from her whole body, sending Piros tumbling to the slab over the river of lava, then looks back to Haseo with a glint in her eyes. Suddenly, Piros seems like he was never scary in the first place.

Haseo finally gets to his feet, noticing that his movements are sluggish. He looks at her as he draws himself up into guard, and Bordeaux laughs wildly. "Do you like my new sword, Haseo? I found it in a pit of monsters. Most weapons have simple, easily modifiable abilities like adding flame damage, but my beauty is different. This beast is diseased – every single time I cut you, you become weaker." She holds up her sword, now dripping green like blood. "And I can still add poison to it. Isn't it lovely?"

Haseo scrambles through the menu and uses an alchemic healing water item. It doesn't restore his base stats, but starts refreshing his hit points. "I've met a lot of monsters over the past couple of years, but you are really messed up."

She merely lets out another wild laugh, throwing herself at him for another flurry of blades. Haseo holds back more this time, trying to take advantage of the parrying capability of his Spin Drakes even if they don't have the same speed and stopping power as a larger weapon like her sword. Unfortunately, she must have really invested a lot in that strange venom, because even the swings he blocks flick specks of poison onto him, biting into his hit points and negating the regeneration from his potion.

Sparks fly as their blades clash, then Haseo hops to one side to avoid having his leg cut off. He notices Piros still standing on the slab, still. "I could really use some help here, anyone who's listening!"

Bordeaux laughs wildly and charges him, only partially deflected as he tries to slip close enough to land a blow of his own. He grunts as he casts her slice aside and swings his other weapon into her again, only leading to another laugh. Piros reaches over his shoulder and draws a new drill forward, something longer and more pointed than his previous one, though he already sets it to spinning and jumps at Bordeaux.

"Scarlet Thrust!"

"Razor's Edge!"

The two crash into each other with such force that a shockwave pulses out, rippling the bubble encasing the undersea area. Bordeaux stumbles back and Piros crashes noisily to the ground.

"Bone Crusher!"

Unable to return skill for skill with her action bar still refilling, Haseo's back attack strikes her dead-on, trading Spin Drakes for a red-trimmed-gold sword that looks like it has several rotating, toothed wheels on one side. Bordeaux smashes into the ground at the conclusion of the special skill, but snaps back up with crazed laughter.

"More, Haseo! Let's play some _more_!" The two clash in a flurry of blades, but what once was a speed boon and reach weakness now reverses. His larger weapon stuns her when he actually does strike true, but she ducks and parries so often Haseo finds himself again at a disadvantage. After one solid hit stumbles her, she weaves through his follow-up, slicing at him like a master fencer. Poison stacks and his stats plunge as she laughs like a banshee before he finally can launch into another skill.

"Heavenly Wheel!"

She merely grins at him as he rushes at her, and he realizes too late that she's prepared for this move. A few more meters close and then she launches into her own art. "Devil Sword."

While Haseo can't quite be drawn in while he's already advancing in an attack, Piros is dragged along the ground, deeper into her reach. Her fetid blade moves like a blur, slashing Haseo apart even as his own succession of wide slices cut through her. Her skill continues after his completes, and her finishing slash sends him smashing down into the rock.

Not having planned on fighting, he doesn't have any smoke screens and his inventory of healing items is low, especially with his strongest one used to revive Piros. Bordeaux sashays closer, holding up her blade and cracking a new vial of venom over it. She pauses a good pace from Haseo as he struggles to stand, drawing back her sword when a shockwave of force slams her upwards from behind.

"Heavenly Rage!"

Piros' multipart drill slams in and back like a needle on a sewing machine, waves of kenatsu crashing through Bordeaux. A final draw back and he thrusts, releasing a spike of golden energy that smashes her into the charred coral wall. It gives just enough time to use the rest of Haseo's healing items to restore most of his and Piros' health. _Damn I wish I wasn't full of alchemic components_.

Both adventurers tense when Bordeaux stands, slightly drunkenly, chuckles building into wild laughter.

"Foul beast! I shall avenge the desecration you have left upon my beautiful artwork!" Piros sprints forward, meeting her in the middle of the road. She swings and he parries her blow, continuing forward to stab his multidrill into her multiple times. Their weapons cross twice more and he parries before Haseo's black scythe buzzes into her back, damage numbers scrolling as he forces the weapon to not just slice but bite straight into her.

Bordeaux makes a heavy kick, knocking Piros back with a clang, but giving Haseo enough time to make another swing as he backs up out of her reach. She snarls at her first miss, then tries to swing again. Haseo pulls himself back as fast as he can with disease still eroding his stats like agility, just clearing her slash as he hits home with one of his own.

"Heavenly Rage!"

Bordeaux snarls again at being interrupted from Haseo, and replies with a sword flash, though Piros' higher-tier art effectively drowns out hers, the final power blow sending her smashing into the charred coral again. She returns to her feet remarkably quickly and starts to raise up in a column of sickly red and purple energy to return the favor against Piros. Haseo is slightly closer, and launches into his own Blademaster Art. "Reaper's Dance!"

Like before, the blow drags her up, then smashes her down into a vortex of black energy, all six claws gouging into her and finally depleting her hit points. Her form collapses like a puppet with its strings cut and she fades away like a shadow passing under light, and Kenji pinches the bridge of his nose. "I think I need a vacation."

…

Kenji nearly drops his rigid thermal container as he reaches in his pocket for a sneeze rag. He made it through a particularly hard week of work and school, but when he nearly blew off his face mask with a sneeze, the instructing master chef sent him home. Now he's just waiting for the subway to stop so he can get off, trudge into his room, and make a cup of hot chamomile tea. Thankfully, the tide of humanity pushes him through the doors and out into the train station, instead of holding him back like it tends to, and thirty minutes later he fumbles with his keys to get into his flat.

Setting down his backpack, he mechanically puts away his foodstuffs before filling his plug-in kettle. Another explosive sneeze later, he scrolls through his pocket pad to check his emails. Most are garbage, but he's sure to send a sick notice to Pascal's Service before wrapping himself up in a blanket.

A few minutes later, Kenji sits down in front of the low desk he bought for the computer and logs into The World. Then he sneezes so hard he knocks the M2D ajar. _Ugh. I hate winter. At least I have enough money saved to last a while, though I'd rather be working. The 4th was supposed to be another big college job_. After a sigh, he puts wishes for tomorrow aside.

Kenji flips the microphone up out of the way. It might not work properly, which is a pity with the new voice changer he bought, but at least he'll be able to use a sneeze rag. With the programs loaded, he logs into The World. Breg Epona fades in around him, and he checks Haseo's friend list. Zelkova, as always, is online. _Doesn't that guy ever sleep?_ Kaede and Gaspard are both online and busy, as is Silabus and a number of others he's seen and not really talked with.

Players warp in and out on both sides, but a minute passes and he senses somebody staring at him. Spinning around on the ball of his foot, he sees a pretty, brown-haired girl scrutinizing him. "Haseo?"

He nearly jumps despite his sick condition. Now that he's heard her voice he knows why she looks familiar, this PC looks almost exactly the same as her real player, Kubo Moe. Except with less clothing. Quite a bit less.

He dabs just to make sure his nose isn't bleeding before he's about to try to greet her. She seizes the initiative, as well as him. "Haseo!"

"Whoa!" he shouts, stumbling a step or two before he tries to wriggle his arms up to get some space. _I keep on running into people who know Haseo_. "Back up a second!"

Tabby finally releases Haseo and steps back, smile staunchly refusing to diminish, and he finds his reflex to snap at her sizzle away like a drop of water on a hot griddle. _Damn, she's cute_.

Then Kenji sneezes so hard Haseo falls over.

"Are you okay, Haseo?" She asks, standing over him with more than just a glint of amusement in her eye. "You also sound kind of funny."

"I have a cold," he snaps. Tabby dims and he feels like kicking himself. "I . . . uh, also got a new voice changer." At least that one's true now.

"Oh," she answers finally, before she looks back up at him as bright as the moment he first laid eyes on her. "Hey, I saw they reopened the quests for the Kharin Caves! I know you were all into fighting and exploration before and these are for alchemists, but can we try it? Can we? Can we? Can we?"

"Calm down," he reaches out to take her by the shoulders and stop her from bouncing . . . from foot to foot. It's terribly distracting. Her enthusiasm is infectious though, and despite the slight ache of the flu he can't help but smile with her. "You're sure perky today. Did you pick up drinking coffee or something?"

She laughs and Kenji feels a warm flutter in his stomach. "Heck, I haven't done a lot of work on alchemy, why not?"

"Woohoo!" she cheers, jumping the air with a full 360-twist, and only making him blush more.

…

Dark corridors of rock meander back and forth as Haseo and Tabby proceed through the quest area. The stillness is pervasive, all of the shadows cleared from the side rooms and only dripping water along the walls to interrupt the gloomy tranquility—

"Ah-CHOO!"

Tabby giggles and despite being the one laughed at, Kenji can't muster up a response of anger. She leans sideways to look up at him and he fights to avoid blushing. Her smile starts to fade and she starts to look more focused and analytical, while Kenji doesn't mind the professional attention, he prefers her smiling instead. "We're almost at the beast statue, you should probably log off once we finish this to get some extra rest. I'm sorry, I didn't consider how sick you might've been."

"No," he waves her off – as far as colds go this isn't the worst he's had, but more than his own discomfort he hates looking at her and feeling like he's the one making her frown. "I needed something to do, really. Besides, I got to spend time with you, isn't that worth it all by itself?"

She pops back up with a smile and he feels a warm flutter at seeing her happy again. They reach the statue treasure and divide the alchemy skill scrolls. Tabby does a victory dance that makes Kenji blush and avert his eyes. "That was so neat! You've changed a lot since the Twilight Brigade a couple years ago, Haseo . . ."

Cold sweat beads his brow. _Crap, not only does she know him but she sounds like she knows him well. Did I pass?_ An explosive sneeze forces himself to grab for the ground, and after steadying himself Kenji queries unsteadily, "Really? How so?"

She giggles. "You're a lot nicer, and you're more analytical when you're fighting." She takes on a more serious look and presses a finger against her lip. "Actually, it's quite a bit of a change from before."

Her brow knits, but Kenji doesn't have any time to panic at her when he sees a familiar figure sashaying in from the caverns. "How the hell do you keep finding me?"

Bordeaux laughs, less wild than last time but still unsettling. "How could I simply leave things unfinished between us? Oh, I've been waiting to have a _lovely_ time with you since TaN, and I've finally got you now!"

Kenji sneezes and glares, more angry at his flu than her interruption. He has no idea what she means by TaN, but he's pretty sure that she's been stalking Haseo for a long time. "Do you really not have anything better to do than follow me?"

Tabby strides up beside him, arms clasped behind her back as Bordeaux cackles. "Haseo? Who's this?"

"Think of an annoying wart and you've pretty much got it," he mutters darkly as he opens his menu and realizes that he's forgotten his heavy armor and weapons again. _Damn all the hunting and animals running from heavy equipment_. He's restocked healing potions since his battle with Piros, but with everything still optimized for alchemy and skill hunting instead of combat, he knows that he's not even as ready as last time. He prepares a quick text message and types as fast as he can.

"I'm not equipped for fighting.  
>"Break for the town portal.<br>"I'll hold her off."

Haseo sets his main weapon to the strongest thing he's got – Heine's Invasion – and hopes that his two smoke screens remaining will be enough to get him away from Bordeaux. He flips through the menus and drops Tabby from the party before taking some more space to the side to be sure she can get away and engaging Bordeaux. His nemesis cackles before drawing her fetid blade while he draws his shadowy daggers, and he bursts at her. It wouldn't be a wise move if he was trying to win, but all he needs is a little time to escape.

They clash in flashes of dark and red, Bordeaux's eyes wide and shining with anticipation. She makes two vertical chops that he narrowly dances around, giving him just enough time to get close enough to slice an X into her. She responds with a quick twist of her full body, slamming him into the air and sending him skidding two meters away.

Bordeaux sashays closer when suddenly something large, spinning like a drill, slams into her from behind, knocking her to her knees.

Kenji looks up as he rises from the rock. "Damnit, I thought I told you to escape while you could!"

Tabby settles into a ready crouch, weight shifting from foot to foot. "I didn't leave you when you were up against a hundred PKers at Lingering Illusion's Phantom, and I sure as hell am not going to abandon you against just one."

Kenji opens his mouth, powerful senses of frustration at her foiling his escape plan warring with a heat in the pit of his stomach that she came back for him. The only other person in his life who truly did that was Shinichi. Bordeaux has no problem interrupting the arguing between them, "Oh please, what a pair of saps!"

"Shut up," Kenji barks.

"Go crying to mommy," she throws back, and his vision instantly hazes red.

Some point of time later, he's interrupted by one of his own sneezes and he finally looks back up, at least mostly coherent. Bordeaux is panting in an extremely pleased manner that makes Kenji feel sick (in an entirely different way than he physically is). Tabby is crumpled against the far wall, a couple flickering cuts on her player character. He throws a revival item that seems to take a moment longer than they should, and after a moment of hesitation she looks up at him in a wide-eyed, shocked and slightly fearful manner that makes him feel like shriveling up, only adding to the misery that clings to him at the reminder of his dead family.

Bordeaux makes a rapid thrust at Haseo that forces him to dive to one side, then twists into a remarkably rapid swing intended to cut Tabby's legs out from under her. She nimbly hops over it, dashes forward, then pops the dark-skinned player twice in the face before somersaulting over her, punching out five times in midair before landing and spinning around to deliver a powerful haymaker. Bordeaux stumbles and backhands her with her fetid sword before returning her focus to Haseo.

He dashes forward faster than she's prepared, but one slice is all he gets before she knocks aside his weapons and steps back. She takes her sword in both hands and stabs the length of her blade halfway into Haseo, twists, then jerks it sideways out of him. It's the most agonizing thing that Kenji's ever felt, and he thinks he hits the floor in the real world as well as the game. Tabby lays into Bordeaux from behind with a rapid sequence of punches and kicks, but the swordswoman takes every single one and spins on the ball of her foot, slicing up through Tabby before planting a kick straight into her sternum and knocking the cat-girl flying into the rock wall.

"Don't be stupid, Tabby, just go—"

"No!" She pops back onto her feet. She smirks. "Besides, what would I say if I did?"

"Anything you want," Kenji replies in a comfortably dramatic way that feels right for his personal idiom, slightly misunderstanding what she's saying and answering with just a touch more melodramatics than necessary. "My lips are sealed."

A bony sword across his face threatens to make that statement more literal reality than it was meant to be, and Kenji rolls backwards to return to his feet just in time to avoid a leaping thrust from Bordeaux. His enemy jerks her sword out of the stone with a flicker of binary like flecks of dust, then charges back at him with a manic glint in her eyes, laughter pealing out of her mouth like the crashing of thunder in a typhoon.

"Rapid Swipe!"

Tabby rockets across the battlefield, stunning Bordeaux on her feet for the fraction of a second before the grappler makes a dual swipe to the left, then back and forth in a flurry of elegant yet rapid slashes. Bordeaux stumbles at the conclusion of the attack art, then strikes out with a straight kick backwards, catching Tabby in the shin. Bordeaux spins around, completing a powerful roundhouse kick that knocks Tabby sliding all the way to the rectangular pedestal that once held the beast treasure.

She extends the move by hefting her sword, slicing Haseo straight across the face. He stumbles but manages to keep his footing, then flicks into his quick arts.

"Bone Crusher!"

She counters with Sword Flash, chuckling derisively when they both stand up at the same time. She cracks a vial of venom over her blade as the three prepare for the next round. "For someone who used to be such a powerful adept rogue, you've sure lost your touch. Using the same old tricks all the time? And trying to split up and run?" She suddenly takes a deep step forward, eyes blazing. "Where's my Haseo who put up such a _real_ fight? Where's your passion?"

She takes a step forward and swings. For a moment he thinks that she's foolishly trying an attack against him from too far away to hit, but globs of venom fly from her blade and Bordeaux twists to extend the slice, revealing her true target: Tabby, who'd been attempting to sneak around behind for another back attack. The blow powers through the grappler and sends her crumpling to the ground with a flicker of her character.

Haseo throws out another healing potion, "Last one!" He then mentally kicks himself for letting Bordeaux know, but it's too late to take it back. Fortunately, his enemy's charged blow required a complete stance change and she's both facing away and has an empty action gauge.

Knowing that his broadsword won't be enough against her with her skill in parrying the large, slow weapon, he skips straight to his favorite weapon. "Reaper's Dance!"

Bordeaux wheels around faster than he was ready for, bracing behind her sword. The skill eventually breaks her out of her block, but she still managed to ward off a good chunk of it. Action bar refilled, she responds immediately with the appropriately named Disaster Sword. The final blow sends Haseo smashing into the rock and he weakly pulls himself up, but just when he's about to settle into a guard stance he sneezes, losing his grip on his controller.

Bordeaux takes full advantage of his open state, slashing into him with her fetid blade. Haseo begins to fall to the ground, his hit points depleted, when a silvery spell rushes along the ground underneath Bordeaux and hits him exactly at the same time as he contacts the stone. The Ol Repth spell refills a portion of his hit points, but he still only manages to rise to his knees when Bordeaux lifts her blade again, her grin not quite as wild as it was before. "Say goodnight, Haseo."

An azure sphere like a lightning storm trapped inside a glass orb descends from the darkness of the cave above, and in his confused state Kenji responds, "Goodnight, Haseo?"

Bordeaux's face twists in fury, but before she can deliver the coup de grace, the orb explodes with blue fire, knocking her over. Kenji blinks and looks up at the person who appeared out of the flash of azure flame.

A figure ambiguously between a boy and a man floats there, feet only hesitantly coming down to rest upon the stone floor. He wears red clothing that looks a dozen stages past stitched together, with wild, pale blue hair sticking out from his red cap. Looking at his face makes Kenji suck in a gasp and fall backwards. The eyes aren't just blue, they're luminescent, burning with light like the fire he came out of.

He glances down at Haseo, uttering no word but letting out a long, haggard breath, before turning to Bordeaux and looking straight at her weapon. Back on her feet, she roars, "Get out of my way, you freak!"

With twin puffs of blue flame instead of the usual white flare, he draws black blades from behind his back, flicking the Empty Skies open with a resounding _shink_. Bordeaux bursts forward and swings. The red figure doesn't even seem to move as much as his arm suddenly appears in the way, a single black triple-bladed dagger stopping her cold. The last of her venom splatters at him, but the weapon flares with blue fire and the figure doesn't so much as flinch.

Shifting her weight onto her back foot, she launches into an impressive flurry of strikes. The red figure blocks every one with movements so fast his weapon starts to leave after-images. He lazily lifts up the Empty Sky in his opposite hand and seems more to slap than slice at her with it, knocking her five meters into the far rock wall. She snaps back up faster than seems right, and glares at Haseo. She opens her mouth, then pauses, eyes narrowing. "Oh, I get it. When you can't make it on your own you call to daddy for help?"

Red crawls into the edges of his vision, but Kenji sneezes before he can give any other response, and then she explodes forward with another Devil Sword. It's just about to connect with the red figure when he winks out of existence with a flicker of blue flame, appearing above and behind her with both Empty Skies held out. He dives into her with a crossing slash, then winks out again before she can counter-attack, appearing behind her and just off to one side. Bordeaux stumbles and backhands, sword passing through a wisp of fire as he winks into existence behind and above her again.

He floats gently down to the ground again and the two clash in a flurry of blades. The red figure actually brings both Empty Skies into play with mechanically precise timing, blocking and striking her exactly once for every attempted swing of her own. This continues for several seconds before he stops and a circle of blue fire spreads over the ground around his feet. As data swirls, the virtual cave around them flickers for a moment. Flames engulf him and split, three of . . . him spacing evenly around her before they simultaneously zip forward, knock her up, then dash into the air and slice furiously into her, smashing Bordeaux into the ground. Her sword tip pierces the stone and the polygons she strikes flicker with binary code before shattering and she falls through.

The figure in red recombines as he descends, looking down at the fizzling data at his feet. He holds out one hand and a set of hexagons appear around his right hand like a bracelet, three long projections unfolding along his arm before straight beams of light lance out at the dissolving polygons, which flicker and restore with no sign that there was ever any damage. The figure in red wreathes in blue flame and with a burst returns to a blue ball, diving down through the floor.

Kenji stares hollowly, feeling incredibly drained, until he feels an arm wrap around his shoulders. Slowly he looks up to see Tabby kneeling next to him, looking exhausted as if she'd been in a real fight, her arm reached around him in what may be empathy or for physical support. Woodenly, he manages to croak, "What?"

Tabby makes a sound like a sniffle crossed with a laugh. "You lost it when she laughed at your mother, and I've been in physical therapy enough to know the look of a man holding back tears."

Only now feeling the welling in his eyes, he still tries to deny, "I don't know what you're—"

Tabby takes him in both arms, and what resistance he had crumbles. Sixteen years without a mother, nine years without his father, two years of living a nightmare, and a year without any more than a couple moments with a single old face press down on him like a ton of bricks.

…

Author's Notes: the "player-versus-player fight at Coite Bodher" references the battle between the Twilight Brigade and TaN in .Hack/Roots.

A good deal of the first battle with Bordeaux is drawn from a wide array of battles in a now-terminated original story I was working on called Knights of Aria. Like .Hack, it takes place primarily in an online simulation, contains modifiable weapons, and has plenty of the sick people who seem to infect the internet. Bordeaux just seemed to draw all of those things together – listening to Nightwish's 10th Man Down probably helped.

I'm aware that according to the game, Bordeaux and (post-game) Tabby return. Both of these seem to conflict with the greater indicators that say they'd either be unwilling or unable to return to The World. In this divergence, Bordeaux never came back, but practically the whole of Kestrel came to fight off Cubia in the stead of her team. I also take the stance that post-game events, like the optional card emails, are not canon, but the information revealed in them is: hence Tabby's successfully entering nursing is canon but her coming back to tell Haseo "hey, I'm becoming a nurse" isn't. Given her personality, Tabby probably would've come back to The World earlier in school breaks and been a character in Vol 2 at the latest if she'd been able at all. The fact that months pass through the AIDA incident (which is implied to take at least 3 months, likely at least double that) indicates to me she wasn't able, and therefore probably still wouldn't have had a chance…until a certain sudden contract termination gives her some time.


	7. Pi R Cross

**Second Shot**

Chapter 7:

Pi R Cross

Saeki Reiko stuffs her knuckles in her mouth to stifle a yawn. Senior network administrators aren't supposed to yawn loudly, and no matter how dreary things have been it wouldn't look good to disrupt an office so silent you could hear a pin drop. Unfortunately, that's how her current boss wants things. _I miss working for Yata, even if it was still under CC Corp_.

A soft buzzing in her jacket gives her a brief jolt of surprise. _My personal cell phone? Who . . ?_ She takes it out and doesn't immediately recognize the number. Curious who would have her old cell number, she flips it open and brushes her long hair from her ear. "Hello?"

"Reiko-san?" a familiar voice floats through the speaker, and she nearly jumps from her seat in recognition of the voice.

"Haseo?" she reflexively responds, much more familiar with that name than his real one. "I mean, Ryou-san? What . . . how did you get this?"

"I had to go through Kuhn. When's the last time you've been on The World?"

"Not since I resigned a year ago," she responds. Misaki Ryou was being unusually roundabout, despite all of his growing up he still had a tendency to snap straight for what he wanted. Granted, that was one of the parts of him she understood and liked.

"Then you might not know . . . my computer was stolen a few months ago. My parents already replaced it so I didn't think much about it during college, but I heard something yesterday and was curious. I got an email from Silabus to my personal email asking me to take out a team for Canard, apparently 'I've' been playing recently. I haven't logged in since our online party a year ago. Somebody else has been playing Haseo."

That was disconcerting. While Haseo's player undoubtedly had some special talent with what he did, his character was the last known thing that was connected to Skeith, the first epitaph of Morganna. If somebody else was gallivanting around with that character, there was the possibility that Skeith could be released uncontrolled. AIDA was no longer a threat, but many of the comas from the Second Network Crisis were from the epitaphs' data-drain. Even if that wasn't the case, there was a computer cracker and thief playing around out there. "I'll find him."

…

Yata pushes his glasses back onto his nose and precisely presses his finger onto a scroll-wheel in the holographic keyboard in the Serpent of Lore in front of him. Rotating counter-clockwise, Azure Kite vanishes in the reversed replay and he stops the recording at Bordeaux and Haseo. The player-character Tabby is standing up from the edge of the beast statue area, likely unable to see the red and white epitaph pattern beginning to burn around Haseo.

He lifts his finger and taps the play button, watching as Haseo makes a flying leap straight at Bordeaux, the artful circuitry pattern tracing down his dual-swords as he mauls into her. A flicker passes and he backs up a few milliseconds, advancing frame by frame until he spots a wire-frame armor blink over Bordeaux's character, something that only appears after Haseo's flurry is extended by the epitaph pattern.

Marking the spot and typing another note for future analysis, he taps the play button and watches the play-back advance again. A _twang_ passes through his headset and he pauses the recording, at first surprised that a new player would have his address. Then he reads the message. "Reiko? Yet another unexpected event." He replies with a Raven guild key and a concise order to report to the Serpent of Lore.

Just a couple minutes later, a very familiar player character strides into the dark hall. While she deleted her character Pi when she resigned from CC Corp, Reiko's characters all closely shared appearance and this new one named Astrid looks almost identical to Pi. The pigtailed hair style is the same, though just a shade darker than cherry red this time. She's also added a breastplate, forearm bracers, and greaves all with strongly Teutonic styling.

The PC once Pi strides purposefully into the dark hall. Glancing up to see a stilled image of Haseo and Tabby in a desolate area, she has a brief flash back to the observation of the Twilight Brigade. "Maybe this will be faster than I expected. May I ask what exactly this is?"

Yata steps down from the pedestal, holding out a hand towards the holographic keyboard. "Like many great engineering disasters, it is the culmination of not one great flaw but many small ones all coming together in one place, one time."

When the strange epitaph pattern springs around Haseo, she gasps quietly. "He hasn't summoned Skeith, has he?"

"No," Yata says with a shake of the head, missing the concern on 'he'. "It does bear resemblance to the rampage my epitaph created before you and he arrived to fully draw it out and subdue it. However, that is not my immediate concern. That would be this and this," he states, pointing to two bookmarked points on the timeline. He draws back a hand, tapping one knuckle against his chin. _Why would Haseo only partially cull his epitaph? He had greater control of Skeith than I did of Fidhell_.

Distracted momentarily from her goal of discovering Haseo's new controller, she spots the propagating data fragments in Bordeaux's new equipment, and the arrival of Azure Kite. If _that_ was showing up, then something much more significant than just a stolen character was afoot.

Astrid shakes her head. _This isn't my problem to handle any more_, she reminds herself. Interesting though it is, she gave up both the right to know and fix it when she finally resigned from CC Corp after the Third Network Crisis. She steps down and bows to Yata. "I'm sorry, Yata-sama, but this isn't what I came for. I just got a message from Misaki Ryou. He hasn't been playing Haseo since he started college, but he just found out that somebody else has been."

Yata presses the highest knuckle of his fist against his chin again. "That changes a number of things, but at least it explains a few." He steps back up to the controls and brings up a few points of the recording in four new screens. "His combat pattern is far different. Haseo's was almost purely offensive, but this contains a mix of offense and defense in a sort of unstable equilibrium." He rewinds back to the emergence of the epitaph pattern. "Hm. It would appear that he is not able to summon Skeith, although drawing out the epitaph this much could still be cause for concern." He rubs his chin. The epitaph pattern looks very different, but he never had any recordings of Haseo summoning the final form of Skeith for comparison. Was this what it looked like now?

Astrid is rather surprised that he seemed to nearly skim over the fact that a very important figure in their lives has somehow been usurped. "What about this new player behind Haseo?"

"Checking back over his travel logs indicate he has been running quests and practicing skills the same as any normal player. He has also changed the credit account charged to an Arakawa Kenji. As long as he's paying for it himself, claiming bank fraud isn't an option." Folding his hands over his chest as he watches the recording yet another time, he adds, "My duties still prioritize the maintenance and stability of The World. I cannot intervene in the matter of Haseo's true player until this mystery of Bordeaux and the Knights of Fianna has been solved."

Astrid stomps one armored foot, but her hastily prepared tirade is interrupted when a holographic control and observation terminal begins to trace into existence right beside her. Yata continues looking at his screens, but states clearly, "It has not been the same without you, Reiko. Your news is troubling, but I can at least do this much to help you."

She bows deeply, "Thank you, Yata-sama."

…

Haseo jogs down the cobblestone road of Fomoraig, his shopping for alchemy and crafting components completed and a list of areas for rare components waiting. Shortly before Kenji reaches the Chaos Gate, however, an anonymous text message flits in.

"Come to the Outer Area in Wald Uberlisterin,  
>"Theta Hidden Forbidden Hades"<p>

The last time he received an anonymous text message, it was from Zelkova. This seems a little more terse than his, but he doesn't see any reason to disregard it. Returning to the city to pick up heavy equipment from storage – just in case Bordeaux rears her ugly head – he proceeds through the Chaos Gate to Dol Donna, and then to Hidden Forbidden Hades.

When the area fades in around him, he looks for a door. Having been curious about Haseo's bookmarks, he investigated this earlier, but the only thing he found last time was a strange flicker in the area graphics when he stood by the broken bridge extending out to the inverted city. He approaches the bridge and the static passes over his M2D again. No explanation is forthcoming.

_Twang!_  
>"Your R1 is context sensitive.<br>"Use it in bugged areas to isolate anomalies."

Thinking it's a strange joke of some kind, Kenji tries it and is surprised to see a honeycombed sphere expand from Haseo. It catches on something just past the lip of the broken bridge, contracting around it and drawing into a strange sort of whirlpool just floating there in the air. Cursoring over it doesn't reveal anything, but out of curiosity he reaches for it and Wald Uberlisterin dissolves around him.

The teleport rings of an area transition drop down around him and Kenji's eyes grow wide. A region dominated by transparent blocks and wireframe walls spreads out before him. Small beads of light zip through the cracks of the blocks forming the floor and walls, and far ahead he can just make out dark, geometric shapes faintly outlined in orange. Deciding he doesn't like the strange creatures that remind him of the spinning tops he used to play with as a child, he makes full use of Haseo's endurance and agility to dodge through the first wide square . . . cavern. He's spotted in the next area, but uses a smokescreen to pass by.

The path continues to twist at right angles, reminding him faintly of early designs for circuit boards, before a long stretch leads him into an apparently empty cubic space with a green object faintly like the teleporters in the regular game areas. A little further past it, closer to the center of the square room, stands a tall, buxom woman with ridiculously large twin-pig-tails extending in elaborate hairdress that matches the red of the scanty clothing and armor she wears. Cursoring over her player, he doesn't recognize her name. Checking Haseo's friend list just in case, he doesn't see any matches. "So . . . Astrid . . . what's up?"

Her arms tightly crossed over the fitted breastplate that sits rather snugly over her prominent chest, she holds a hard glare at him, body leaned slightly away. There's little that she could do to look more hostile. Kenji feels himself start to sweat under his M2D. "Is there something I can help you with?" He asks politely.

Her glare only narrows. "Haseo's player is Misaki Ryou. Kuhn helped him contact me, and I've been watching as an administrator. As far as I can see, you're just a petty computer thief who was released three years too early."

Kenji's blood instantly turns to ice. How could she know exactly the number of years commuted from his sentence? _Maybe she just picked a number?_ It's unlikely, and given the way she hasn't budged from her hostile posture she probably knows a lot more that she hasn't said. Guessing that the illusion is up but unwilling to fully commit, he probes, "What do you really want?"

"Why don't we start with 'why did you steal Haseo'?"

"I . . ." Kenji looks down at his hands – so many things had been going on that he'd never had a chance to confront all of them. He thought things were going to get more simple after he spoke with Zelkova, and decided to take things slow. Unfortunately, after meeting Tabby everything became a frenzied juggling act again. "I . . . I don't know anymore."

"You don't even have a reason? Has nothing changed since last time?" Astrid snaps, incredulous. "What, you couldn't figure out to stay out of a couple of wrong paths after ruining two hundred people? Did you just go back to selling personal information?"

"I didn't!" Kenji bellows, panic welling up in his already confounded state. "I never . . ."

"You stole computers, cracked their security, handed over their personal information, and probably helped sell them. Two years not enough? You're just jumping right back in?"

"No!" Kenji reflexively ripostes, then cringes. As much as he hates to realize it, she's more right than wrong. "All right, sort of—"

"So you're going to do the same thing all over again? Reach for those three commuted years, plus some?" Astrid snaps, though at least much less violently than her previous accusations.

"I'm not doing the same thing!" he tries to deny, cringing as a part of himself says _and yet you went right back once Shinichi showed up again, didn't you?_ "Listen, I don't leave information. I know now what they were doing last time, and I'm wiping all of the computers they bring." He looks up and around at the strange area of black and transparent blocks like cobblestones. "Why are you throwing this all in my face? Obviously you've got enough information to throw me back into my commuted sentence." Now he looks her straight in the eye, shame, panic, and irrational anger equally warring as he points one finger and snarls, "What, did you need some kind of confession?"

Astrid takes a moment to breathe and calm herself before she shakes her head. "Outer dungeons are outside normal game areas, even admins in the Serpent of Lore can't listen in here." She swallows and forces herself to take a less hostile posture. "Misaki asked me for a few things when he found out. He made his peace and moved on a year ago, and I want to respect that. I brought you here so that we could talk without needing to worry about people watching over our shoulders. I don't know why this was so important to him, but he really wanted to know: why are you playing Haseo?"

Kenji lifts a hand, studying the back of Haseo's gloved hand. The three red gems don't yield any easy ways out. "Maybe . . . I think I just needed a way out of where I was. I don't have any family or friends anymore, and I needed something . . ." He grasps as if the answer was floating invisibly in the air ahead of him. Astrid is strangely patient at the moment, standing there with crossed arms. "Something to know that I was really alive, that my life was worth something. Nothing I did seemed to be any more than a shadow, and . . . I guess I needed somebody else to open a door for me."

A beat passes, and Astrid uncrosses her arms. To his surprise, her tone is quiet. "So instead of striking out on your own you masqueraded as somebody else? And kept on doing it?" Kenji avoids eye contact, and her glare returns. "Just decided you'd use somebody else's hard work? Is that what you did in your computer ring—?"

Now all of his fear and panic and self-loathing boils over into anger. "You people are so quick to condemn! If you suits were so great and mighty, where were you when my parents died and nobody stepped up to keep me out of the streets? They were _there_ when nobody else was! Why the hell wouldn't I do the same for them? It wasn't like I knew any better!"

"Do you think you're the only one who lost family and was left alone?"

Kenji raises his fists, preparing to launch an expletive-filled roar at her when he realizes that she spoke in the simple tones of a statement.

Just a statement.

Not a poisoned barb, not a burning accusation, not even much of a question. He looks askance at Astrid, and while the woman is still on guard, she doesn't look quite so much like an enemy as another player in The World.

"Let's back up a few steps. How did you come across Haseo?"

Kenji rubs his eyes under his M2D and he fights down his familiar reflexive anger. At least this question is simple, and it's not like trying to hide it will feasibly help him. "It was . . . an old friend. He showed up out of no-where. I didn't expect to see any of them again. I was living a hollow life, feeling too much like I was when dad died. When he showed up at my door I was so happy to see him that I never considered what I was getting back into." Kenji shifts in his seat at the desk and tries to decide what to say without unnecessarily dooming himself or Shinichi – whatever happens, Shinichi was the only one there for him when his father died.

"The first computer was Haseo's. It didn't even have anything in it, and since I can't make my own computer he let me have Haseo's. I had no idea whose account was on it until after I opened up. I started meeting people on my first login," he says, remembering Kaede. Kenji feels a lump in his throat – he hasn't spent time with her since meeting Tabby a week ago. "I know it was building on things your Haseo started . . . but I didn't have anyone else." He forces his hands not to clench, left hand starting to shake more. "While I was with them . . . I didn't feel like I was dying again."

A few beats tick by. "You know that you can't keep up the masquerade forever," Astrid states without threat, her tone almost sagely. She probably knows she doesn't need to – just noting the unavoidable nature of the web of lies he's been floundering in is enough.

"I . . . know, but I don't want to lose any of them."

Astrid is silent for a few moments as lights flit along the walls and through the seams in the floor. "I'll be honest: I think you're still a thief in every sense, and I'm of half a mind to turn you in. But Haseo wanted to hear the how and why things were happening before he made a decision." She starts to stride towards the green, rather two-dimensional teleporter, but pauses and turns back to him. "Consider: If you can't earn them yourself, were they ever yours to lose?"


	8. Price

**Second Shot**

Chapter 8:

Price

Dear Haseo,

Thank you for your regular patronage of 'The World'.

The "Aquamarine Army" event will take place at the following location:

Lambda Hidden Forbidden Benthos,  
>Watery Graves of the Fomoirian Seas.<p>

Your objective for this event is to stop the gathering armies of Fomoire massing against the continent by defeating all eight of their generals. There are no conditions to participate, so feel free to test your skills. However, it is recommended that your PC level be over 150, or you travel with players of various high skills to unlock safer paths. Also, you will not be able to withdraw items from your storage while in the Seas. We recommend that you prepare your equipment well.

Steam wafts with the quiet sound of boiling water from the electric kettle and Kenji sets down his pocket tablet. One cup of chamomile later and he returns to check his other email. Nothing grabs his attention, leaving him to continue to stew over his conversation with Astrid yesterday. After logging in, Kenji opens up Haseo's friend list, looking through all 25 entries, and spots a familiar name near the top. Kuhn. Astrid mentioned him already in the loop somehow. Too many people seem to be in on things, might as well find out what his take on his situation is.

…

The darkness of the Serpent of Lore pulses with low levels of light as a recording plays on a holographic screen. Two blade brandiers sprint through a scorched desert plain, shouting to their teammates ahead. A rotund beastman running ahead of them trips. He turns over and starts backing up, reaching out his grimoire in a panicked attack. "OrGan Bolg!"

The earth area spell goes off beyond the immediate viewing window, but Yata keeps his focus firmly on the fleeing blade wielders. He pushes his glasses back up on his nose and watches the one in a longcoat-like costume come to a stop alongside the team's fourth member, a steam gunner charging a shot against the team's pursuit, a laughing woman, as the tribal-themed bladesman continues fleeing for the teleporter a short distance away.

"Sword Flash!"

A weapon like long fragments of bone fused together into some form of longsword smashes mercilessly through the warlock's body, and she lifts one booted leg to finish him with a kick when the gunner lets loose his shimmering gun. Magic power traces through its glowing lines, converging on the barrel already drawing in spots of light. Once they meet, a beam almost thirty centimeters wide roars out from the half-meter long weapon. When it strikes Bordeaux, white flecks like shards from a shell sputter away, but instead of picking up and flying like a rag doll, her weighted armor drags her into a spinning drop and she hits the parched dirt.

Bordeaux begins laughing as she pulls herself back up. "Yeah! Now that's what I'm looking for!"

The gunner and longcoat hold a guard posture, but the warlock gawks at the dark-skinned swordsman. She makes a low leap and comes down on him in a powerful axe kick that smashes his few remaining hit points. As soon as her feet hit the ground, she races against the pair standing their ground. Longcoat braces his guard and the gunner backs up behind. Her slash makes the longswordsman shudder but he holds.

The gunner begins to charge another beam with his unique weapon when Bordeaux draws in her sword and bursts into another attack art.

"Razor's Edge!"

Longcoat is smashed out of the way and Bordeaux slashes the gunner's weapon out of his hands before obliterating his hit points, his image ghosting as soon as he hits the ground. Bordeaux laughs and Longcoat manages to parry her weapon twice before she slices cleanly from his shoulder to hip. He stumbles back, slowed, and stares up at his dark-skinned attacker.

Bordeaux trots closer, drawing an item that she holds over her sword before changing her mind and putting it back. "Is that it? Where is your fight?! Come on!" Longcoat only has enough time to raise his sword, shaking visibly, but seems to take too long before she loses her patience and powers a slice through him. The PC fades to monotone, looking like a salt sculpture, before cracks spread over the off-white shape and he collapses into white shards.

Yata pauses the recording, looking up at the bookmarks he placed on the timeline when he spotted propagating data fragments. A window finally opens to his right, an intercepted report from a hospital in Takamatsu of a comatose patient waking up with symptoms of Doll Syndrome. "Hmm." _As I feared, the problem is growing_.

…

Thunder claps at the same instant as the teleport rings fall from a bright blue-haired, yellow-garbed character. Kuhn glances up and about at the scenery with an appreciative look. "Wow, I haven't been down here in a while. Gloomy." After a second, he glances around the stone pier the Chaos Gate rests on and spots Haseo. Another moment of quick but not-quite-subtle-enough examination passes. "Hey, didn't expect to see you. You wanted to talk about something?"

Kenji nods and sends a party invitation. "I presume that you've already gotten the spiel from Astrid and . . . your Haseo?"

Kuhn raises an eyebrow at 'Astrid', then scratches one temple with his fingers. "Well, sorta. Ryou called me for help with Pi, but she wanted to do some more digging or something before she wrapped things up. Where were you planning on going to talk?"

Kenji turns to the Chaos Gate. "I just received notice of a special event area, I thought a new backdrop might be a good place to go over things. That's how this mess started, maybe it'll be how I find the end of it." He reaches out to the gate and swings into his newest bookmark for Hidden Forbidden Benthos.

Pounding rain is the first thing he notices as the new area fades in. Wooden palisade walls enclose a hastily fortified beachhead. A set of battered tents, mostly collapsed, sit in the background along the hill to the north, with the main swampy island stretching out to the west. Little flames like those from ghost stories float just at the periphery of his vision, but they always dash away from direct sight. Another teleporter leading deeper into the special area rests at the gates.

Kuhn lifts a hand to shield his eyes from the rain and looks out. "The Fomoirian Channel? I thought CC Corp deleted this place after all the damage it took due to AIDA and Cubia." He scrutinizes the area for a few moments. "Doesn't _look_ fragmented."

The part of him that wants to avoid the whole tangle his life has become jumps to the fore and Kenji asks, "You've been here before?"

"No," Kuhn shakes his head and lowers his hand. "But while I was assistant guildmaster of Kestrel, some of the adventurers would talk about this place. It was supposed to have strange items, like the Forest of Pain or the Lost Desert. Pi mentioned this area after Cubia." The pouring rain continues to come down, and Kuhn seems to take in the gusting winds and falling sheets of rain for a moment before blinking. "Let's check out what the areas inside are like."

Kenji nods half-heartedly and follows to the teleporter, whisking them away into a slightly calmer bog-like area. Dark clouds still roil above, lightning without thunder flickering through the sky, but the rain now only comes down as a faint drizzle that feels more like a normal area effect. A yawning, gateway opens through a stone wall, and Haseo glances at the stonework as he strides a pace out on a bridge extending out four meters over the ground area, though the pillar supporting the central bridge has collapsed and the bridge now forms an angled ramp that leads down and to one side to the ground level. Various bodies of water ranging from small puddles to miniature lakes dot the ground, a stone wall on the far wall and the other two borders made of solid walls of vegetation. Bamboo poles rise up across the gap where the bridge used to be. The ghostly lights seem to be gone, but that same light seems to faintly emanate from the larger bodies of water whenever he's not looking directly at them.

Kuhn stretches out as he looks at a pair of jar-like golems floating across the center of the area. They turn away and he settles into a relaxed posture, hands crossed nonchalantly over his chest. "So, what's up? To be honest, I figured you'd've taken off as soon as Pi gave you a tongue-lashing – not that I'd blame you. Sexy though she is, she can be one scary woman when she wants to be."

Kenji opens his mouth, then hesitates. He tries again, then closes his mouth and steps back. _How can I ask for help when I couldn't even figure things out after hours with Zelkova?_ "I'm . . . not even sure where to start." He sits down at the edge of the bridge jutting out and laughs self-deprecatingly. "Hell, after all this time I'm still not sure what I really want." He presses a palm over his forehead, unable to push away the memory of his verbal fight with Astrid – who apparently is also 'Pi'. "It didn't help that she kept throwing my prison term at me."

"Whoa," Kuhn exclaims, holding up one hand as if expecting an attack. "You were in prison?"

"She didn't tell you about Mori's Law I see," Kenji drawls as he continues to look out over the swampy landscape. "I was caught helping my friends sell stolen computers. All I was doing was breaking passwords – yes, I admit it was computer cracking, but I was just a stupid kid then. It was fun and that's all I knew it was – that's why they named me the Blue Kitsune. I was compulsive, I always wanted to see what I could do." Kenji holds up a hand, looking at the styling on Haseo's arm. "That's part of why I came here."

Yellow stops beside him and Kenji glances aside to see Kuhn standing there, looking out over the edge of the bridge. "So . . . is it pretty bad in there?"

Kenji looks down and keeps his gaze on the pools of water far below, eerie lights just at the edge of view. "I had a few close calls home in Kyoto, but it was a totally different sort of . . . they didn't separate the population very well. It didn't take long before I learned that 'hey prettyboy' meant 'we're going to beat you within an inch of your life'."

_"__You're just a petty computer thief who was released three years too early."_

Fisting his hands, Kenji grits his teeth together. "People spit on me my whole life, no matter how stupid it was. When I was a kid it was 'look at the green-eyed girly-boy, he can't be _real_ Japanese. Then it was 'street urchin' in High School. It doesn't matter what I do, it's never enough for them," Kenji grates out just above a whisper, feeling the weight of long, unjust years. He looks down at his hands, seeing Haseo's overlay through his own M2D, both tremoring in indignant anger. _It just isn't fair_. Then he remembers Kaede. Despite all the trouble he's walked into with his stolen character, he can't just walk away from it. He's caught too tightly by the web.

"Ryou was really only mad that somebody else was masquerading as him, so I think I've got a simple solution," Kuhn states cheerily. "Make your own character and leave Haseo—"

"I can't!" Kenji blurts before he can catch his tongue. Kuhn folds his hands over his chest and shoots a raised eyebrow at Kenji. He's not sure whether it's his defensiveness that prods him to explain, or whether he really wants somebody else to understand. "Haseo's the only way I have of contacting Kaede, or Tabby, or . . ."

He's about to continue as a cold feeling pools in his stomach, warring with the irrational anger, when Kuhn drops down to the edge of the rail-less bridge next to him. "Hey, I saw you and her in Breg Epona." Kuhn pokes the white-clad player with his elbow. "Have some confidence in yourself, if you two are spending a lotta time together I'm sure that you can get her phone number." Kenji looks away, unnoticed by Kuhn who looks across the area, starting to reminisce, "I'm a master of that myself, so I could give you a few pointers . . ."

"If I knew which . . . er, how . . ." Kenji starts, trying to figure out how to explain his . . . interrupted relationship with Kaede. Kuhn doesn't give him the time to piece anything together.

"You've got two chicks out there?" Kuhn laughs, not noticing the way Kenji's shoulders or expression falls. He punches Haseo playfully in the arm. "You lucky dog! No wonder Ryou wants Haseo back! No momma's boy here! Say, you ever taken 'em both on a faux double-date—"

Heart thundering in his ears, Kenji roars like a lion, jumping up from the edge and tackling Kuhn with full intent to cause bodily harm. He doesn't notice the red and white traces of the epitaph pattern tracing around Haseo as he snarls, "It's not like that!"

Kuhn, seeing the lines burning into existence around Haseo, promptly kicks the shorter player off and scrambles back onto his feet. Being in the same party will only protect him from friendly fire as long as the regular game is being used, if an epitaph is drawn out anything could happen. He snaps his gun out but raises his free hand as if to signal that he doesn't want a real fight to break out. "Hey, calm down. I didn't know you were that serious about this."

Kenji closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths. What parts of the epitaph pattern had sprung out fade before he opens his eyes. "Astrid's right, I can't keep this up. Maybe I shouldn't even be here, but . . . I'm just . . . I can't just walk away from . . ." Unbidden comes the memory of Gaspard looking up at him with a kindly yet pitying smile. Then a blush comes at the memory of Tabby's far more enthusiastic hug, or the time they shared just talking at the Arche Koeln waterfalls. His grip on his anger starts slipping and he finally lets his shoulders fall. "It felt like I've been living alone under cold rain like this all my life."

Kuhn resists the urge to slap his hand over his face. "You don't have to abandon everything here to start a new character, and he's already going steady so he'd probably understand the whole juggling act. Just send a couple of emails and pop into Mac Anu. It's not like they're going to get hurt by missing you for a while—"

"What if it does?" Kenji snaps. Everybody's so eager to tell him 'go this way' or 'don't do that', but how many of them have walked a life even marginally like his? He clenches his fists but forces himself to breathe deeply to control his anger. "I'm sick and tired of either being alone or being told that I'm a bad person for wanting something I don't have. It's not like I'm even stealing anymore, I'm paying for Haseo's account myself."

Kuhn puts away his gun and forces himself to shrug to look more accommodating. _Maybe I just hit a berserk button. I've had plenty of other people look down on me when they think I'm just a manipulative girl-player_. "Well, tell me what's up, that's what we're here for. I'll be honest, I'm not the only one who wants to know what all the ruckus is about. Yes, Ryou was planning on leaving The World behind when he went to college, and things haven't been the same without him." Kuhn scratches behind his ear. "I'll admit, when he called me I was hoping that he'd come back and it'd be some big happy reunion, but he was serious when he said he didn't want anything distracting him from college or his girlfriend, and he's probably not coming back."

Kuhn relaxes his stance. "And yeah, I'll even take the big boy step and say it's your life to live, but part of moving from acquaintances to friends is trusting them to look after themselves . . . and even you, a little. Even after they get to know you a little. Here's what I see where I stand . . ."

…

A rattle emanates from the corner of the simple plastic desk stretching across the quiet cubicle. Kubo Moe sighs and reaches from her physiology homework to her black cell phone, initially to click it from vibrate to off when she notices the caller name. She reflexively straightens her sweater as she answers, "Miyamoto-sensei?"

"Kubo-chan, I'm glad that I could get a hold of you on such short notice," her mentor in her first internship states in a pleased tone, but there is an undercurrent of tension that makes Moe feel uncomfortable. "I've been receiving a number of patients bearing a disturbing similarity to the Doll Syndrome cases that we worked on a year and a half ago. I know you're still working on your degree and probably have another internship you're busy with, but . . . you were one of my best workers on the syndrome."

Moe takes a moment to swallow – they were so hard-pressed trying to figure out what neurological fault was responsible for the condition that few compliments were exchanged. It just wasn't on anybody's mind while racing for a cure – or even explanation – to a disease that was spreading all across the developed world. When it vanished, it was at the same time relieving – Shino Nanao finally woke from her coma – but at the same time it was maddeningly frustrating, because they never found answers. The fact that he was calling her now and brought up their shared project could only mean one thing. "It's back."

"It seems so."

A heavy cold seems to settle over the small cubicle in the study wing of the library. While she still has class work to finish before the weekend, Doctor Miyamoto had been her first guide into the real world of medical research and rehabilitation and she still respected him a great deal. Moe pushes away the class text, flips a few pages farther in her notebook to blank pages, and picks up her pen. "I'm actually not on internship at the moment. What's the situation looking like . . ?"

…

Author's Notes: There's a reason Kenji's defensive and dismissive of his role in his code cracking past – he's human. He knows what he did was technically wrong, but like many humans he's more subconsciously mad that he got caught than guilty for having done the wrong thing, it's a childish element but one that's common among humanity. Until you empathize with the people you're stealing from you don't understand it (in a higher-thought sense) as stealing.

After all, even though empathy gives us a bridge to meet each other, we humans can't completely _know_ what's going on in another person's head . . .


	9. The Last Avatar

**Second Shot**

Chapter 9:

The Last Avatar

Saeki Reiko taps the 'page forward' in her e-reader, a copy of Japan's 2020 psychological diagnosis manual displayed before her. A few moments pass as she reads before she looks up and begins rapidly typing into a text document outlining her findings, suspicions, and possible plans of action. It was growing rather long in suspicions and short on plans.

Things seemed so simple while she was preparing to confront the ex-con, but Ryou's and her own curiosity combine with a sense that there is something important missing. It's leaving her with a feeling like she's going around circles around the answer she's seeking. The fact that his story about feeling alone, abandoned, and more than a little angry resonated with her own – that vengeful anger, however buried in her subconscious, was why she awakened Tarvos back when she controlled Pi.

She had gone back to Yata, and he had no problem giving her full access to The World, making it easy to go back to the battle between Bordeaux, Haseo, and Azure Kite. This time she pulled out the full area recording, watching about fifteen minutes of uninformative adventuring with Haseo and Tabby and then watching past the disappearance of the Knight of Fianna. Seeing Haseo – no, it was Arakawa – have a full-blown episode had staggered her like a sucker punch.

For a moment she thought the player was having an epileptic seizure: a lot of real-world actions translated into the game. Even moreso for Epitaph Users. Then she realized that it wasn't so simple – he was an unstable individual, probably on edge for a while before something about the demeaning of his parents caused him to slip into what was at the least a panic attack and likely a much more serious event. She just isn't sure whether it is pitiable because he had a psychological breakdown or whether it was dangerous because he'd culled his epitaph against Bordeaux.

Sighing at being unable to decide which, she slides the psychological manual to the side of her desk, then saves and closes her notes. She spends the next quarter hour in her company's network logs before emailing a compiled set of observations and recommendations. That completed, she has nothing left to do and begins to shut down and collect her things.

Her executive assistant looks up from her desk, hastily minimizing a game of Sudoku just a moment too slow to escape notice. "Saeki-san, already finished with your projects for the day?"

The fact that she uses the plural does not go unnoticed. "Everything that Altimit needs. How did you know I was working on more than one?"

Her assistant, a young woman with dyed blond hair that always looked slightly tacky to the network engineer, smiles. "You always seem to work full-steam when you've got several projects you're juggling, especially when one of them is personally interesting. I don't know how you do it, Saeki-san."

Reiko smiles, part of the gesture genuine but some of it exaggerated to allay concern. "I suppose that's just how things go. When I was back at CC Corp, I didn't have much choice but to work on half a dozen things at once." The human behind Astrid then dons her coat and departs. Many jobs in Tokyo, especially here in Nishi-Shinjuku, have rigid time schedules, but Saeki Reiko's is task-oriented. Most of the time she kept working on the next project and ended up keeping the same long hours as the other workers, but now she had something in The World to occupy her attention.

…

Blue rings fade away as the character Haseo teleports into the swamp field. A light drizzle falls from the dark clouds blanketing the sky above, but the field lacks the intensity or haunting quality of the channel. Haseo cranes his neck to one side to stretch out a loose muscle, then shakes his body to try to dispel the remaining knots. Turning to glance back at the other three players in his party, he calls out, "Before we start the quest, is anybody calling any drops?"

Gaspard scuttles forward, pumping his arms in the air in the excitement of not only getting temporary access to a new town and its areas but also the rare opportunity to adventure with Haseo. Even if he's been acting differently . . . "Ooh, since I'm probably the only Warlock with a level high enough to use the grimoires here, can I get the first drop?"

Haseo shrugs and looks over his shoulder at the other two adventurers from Canard. One is a human warlock with twin sashes crossing over his shoulders and holding up an armored skirt, tribal tattoos adorning his arms. The blue dominating his pattern goes well with his name, the Blue Thunder. He shrugs. "I couldn't use the equipment drops here for more than twenty levels, but I call leathers and any armor components."

The last adventurer, a high-level gunner from Moon Tree before that guild's dissolution, rolls his eyes and tugs a red coat that looks more like it would have fit on a colonial British officer than the steampunk setting of The World. "Not like I care, the only thing _here_ I want is weapon skill. I'm only a few quest points short of coming to this server on my own."

Haseo nods and gives an understanding, pleased smile that Gaspard recalls being so rare on his old friend. Maybe just a little different, but the time in college must have changed him. After all, he'd moved on to High School himself. Shaking his head, Gaspard notices Haseo striding purposefully off towards the first obelisk the team will need to activate to open the barrow mound for the quest.

After rounding the first hill, their first enemy party trundles into view. A gaunt humanoid with long, pointed ears and enormous, solid black eyes sits in the lotus position on what looks like a floating, inverted pyramid. Trailing behind stomps a wood golem with bulky shoulders and arms that make it look faintly like a gorilla, except for the green sprigs poking almost randomly out of it. While the gunner could potentially have tried to sneak around for a first strike, warlocks have to complete quests to exploit sneak attacks themselves. Twin Blades, however, have enhanced skill in sneaking by default, and with that as his first class Haseo has had plenty of practice landing that important first blow.

The only strange thing, Gaspard observes, is how carefully he's slipping around to nail the sorcerous humanoid from behind. The old Haseo would have jumped at the first opening the golem left and been in battle already. Finally he hears the call for first strike, and the inverted-pyramid-riding monster smashes into the golem before deflecting and striking a rock wall.

While fighting with such high-level monsters would have made Gaspard nervous a long time ago, a year of leading new warlocks in Canard has bolstered his confidence. "Orvak Don!"

The fire spell rains down on the wood golem, setting the construct ablaze, but the blows only slow it down and it turns on the party of adventurers. Haseo flicks out his scythe and charges on the floating monster as Blue Thunder zaps it with a quick light spell. They don't do much damage before the floater sends out a spell, hitting Haseo with darkness.

He weathers the assault, then dives into a roll to come up behind the caster, bursting into a Heaven's Wheel art. Gaspard and his fellow warlock pound the enemy caster with light magic while the gunner Rougepelt prepares Dust Bullet. Shockwaves slam out from the center of the battlefield, and the party scatters away from the golem, almost forgotten in the momentary focus on the floater.

The golem roars and raises its hands in the air clenching its fists. As if to add annoyance to insult, the party of adventurers watches the 'defense up' icon rise on both of their enemies. Gaspard glances back at the gaunt figure on the floating platform, the golem has given its partner just enough time to launch its hands skywards, palm up, and an alchemic circle burning dark purple traces into the ground. "Everyone? Brace!"

Plumes of black erupt from every intersection within the circle beneath them, a roaring maelstrom that surges outwards for five meters. The party of adventurers snaps into guard, but the magic still boils through them. Haseo is even gritting his teeth as if he was really feeling the burn, points of light growing at the corners of his eyes like tears of pain.

Finally the enemy spell ends and the adventurers as one strike at the gaunt floater. Gaspard and his compatriot Blue slam it with Orlei Zas, the lances of light magic hitting so hard that floater lifts higher into the air. Rougepelt blasts it with a double shot, and Haseo smashes into it at the apex of its air time with Twin Moons. The aerial maneuver doesn't kill the high-leveled monster, but does send it crashing back into the dirt, stunned. The emaciated figure tilts dizzily as both Haseo and the gunner slash at it with their bladed weapons, sparks flying from Haseo's gigantic gold-and-red broadsword.

Mana spills off of the undead monster in a shower of dollops of light and it trembles before the undead spell caster finally fades away. Haseo dodges forward and rolls out of the way of a swipe from the golem and the team shuffles to face the hulking construct.

…

The darkness of the Serpent of Lore hums with the quiet activity representing hundreds of computers. Standing on the pedestal before its master control terminal stands a red-clad man with faintly Sanscritic tattoos snaking over his character. Yata taps a real-time surveillance window and drags it up and to his right, leaving it to hang out of the way. The central holographic screen plays a recording taken the previous day.

Bordeaux parries a short sword away and brings up her greaved shin to block the Twin Blade player's other weapon before making a strong upward swing that knocks away one of his Ripper Blades. The shorter, faintly canine player grits his teeth and changes stance, in one motion thrusting his other weapon into Bordeaux's midsection. She stumbles back, catching herself just before a sub-area ledge and then snapping up her head, her wild gaze boring straight into his.

The Lei tribe player's eyes widen when the dark-skinned swordswoman throws back her head and laughs. "Oh, yeah! More! Come on!"

The canine player jerks back, stumbling almost off his feet before he regains his posture. "You're insane!"

Bordeaux cackles at the accusation. "Why? Because I'm honest about why I'm here?" She grins like a cheshire cat, leaning down to stare him in the eyes. "We're all here because death is the only thing that makes us feel alive, and you're all too cowardly to taste it in the real world!"

Twin Blade reaches to the pouches on his steampunk-themed utility belt and throws a Return Feather down at the ground, but it hits and the whole floor flickers as if a graveyard of bones tried to rise out of the rock and the item disintegrates uselessly. The canine player looks towards the center of the brief, terrifying pattern to see Bordeaux standing there, her wild smile having returned.

"Leaving, so soon?"

The two break into a sprint at the same instant, Bordeaux at her prey and he down the hall of the underwater ruins, a triangular scar carved into the wall ahead. Bordeaux's longer legs give her the advantage and she takes her sword in a two-handed reverse grip, plunging her jagged blade deep into the hapless Lei tribe player. White shards fly like sparks from flint, and the player collapses to the ground, shattering like crystal.

Yata pauses the recording and tries to select the player to bring up administrator access to his data and find out who was playing him when the system flickers. Every screen in the Serpent of Lore momentarily blinks off, then back on, the recording before him choppy with digital static and broken polygons. Yata fills out a few notes on his secondary computer, then hits 'send' and locks the Lost Area to normal travel. He had a habit of sitting back and only watching from a distance before the AIDA incident.

It's time for a field excursion this time.

…

Tri-Edge's Sign glows bright for a moment, before it seems to erupt with fire. The brief storm coalesces into a humanoid figure, which flickers once and then solidifies. Yata lets out a deep breath and strides forward to the intersection of the hall and the circular chamber where Bordeaux's last identified fight took place.

The walls look like smooth stone, the echo of confined spaces lending a claustrophobic sense to the underwater area. The hallway continues straight ahead for a dozen meters before the passage ends and the sea begins. The door on his right to the circular chamber passes without any obvious signs of bugs or area faults. Yata glances up, the bubble-like canopy revealing the dim depths of the ocean above, living coral waving gently in the currents and a luminescent eel swimming lazily across the reef just past the bubble dome. To his left lies the passage to the Chaos Gate, currently still and dark in its lockdown state, while the circular room where the fight took place is past a door on his right. No obvious signs of area damage leap out.

_I suppose it couldn't have been that easy if it took this much work to make as little progress as I have_. Still, this wasn't the first time bugs had confounded the normal system. This wouldn't be the first time he overcame them despite that. Many of the epitaphs had detached from their host PCs since the AIDA incident, having been abandoned as their users moved on with their lives, but Yata had never been able to leave behind The World.

He couldn't since he had been called Wiseman. He'd only grown closer since awakening with Fidhell near the end of the AIDA incident.

Taking a deep breath to center himself, Yata feels a heat pooling in the base of his stomach. He draws his arms across his chest, then snaps them out to his sides and begins floating up before he feels the epitaph pattern trace over his PC. The entire world, both real and digital, seems to float away into the oceanic mass of serenity, and then he is drawn back into the realm that is and is not The World, Fidhell as his eyes and hands.

The first thing that hits is the reek of decay. He pauses a moment to ponder how such a sense could be conveyed over the digital pathways usually represented through sight and sound on a headset, but The World has long defied conventional wisdom, so he turns his focus to the other details littering this area.

The first thing he spots is a hole. It's as if something punched through the area wall like a fist through paper, but sealed the opening behind itself, if imperfectly. A clutter of broken data fragments litter the area beyond, shreds of a dozen files probably from The World. Within the area, a few scattered bytes float where they came to a stop, lodged in the area data during Bordeaux's fight with L33 M0N. The reek of decay continues up to the Sign, where it opens into the seams of The World.

From there, the trail appears to diffuse. Yata sighs, but takes a second look. On second thought, there are a few threads that might be either extraneous data or obvious decoys, but some appear to trace to other areas. Three threads. Three directions. In the AIDA incident, he could just ask a couple of teams to handle it and he might track one, but now there is only one option: a guess.

_Down to the Lambda server, then_.

…

The veteran gunner in the red longcoat hustles up to the opposite side of the doorway. Beyond stretches a hall branching to the right and left, their destination being a hall of inscriptions on the opposite side of the hallway loop. Haseo sidles up to his side of the yawning doorway and looks into the cavernous stonework in the barrow mound. He slides back into their room and whispers – an unnecessary precaution since monsters can't perceive party communication. "Two wights and a cadaver apostate."

Blue Thunder lifts both hands to the sky and wails melodramatically, "Why must there be so many undead?"

Gaspard chuckles while Rougepelt leans out to check both directions of the cavernous hallway cutting an elliptic path into the barrow. "Well, this quest is a prerequisite for the necronomicon adventures."

Gunner squints, then leans out to look farther down the north end of the next hall. "Is that player out here solo? She must be nuts."

A simultaneous sensation of cold coalescing along his spine and an angry heat in his gut forms. Kenji opens his inventory to check his battle gear. The entire team was outfitted to take on enemies more than ten levels above, but they've relied on element-matching and status afflictions against monsters with bestiary entries. He doesn't even have to see the PKer to know who it is, and he isn't sure they can take her.

Kenji checks to make sure his chat is set to party only. "I think the respawn rate is slow enough that you guys should be able to fall back to the last teleporter and retreat to town."

Blue Thunder looks aghast, even insulted, at Haseo. "No way! Between working part-time and studying for my college entrance exams, I'm not going to have time for a party quest for a month!" He hunches slightly into a combat posture, then holds out one hand and with a flash of light his grimoire splays open readily before him.

Rougepelt continues to squint at the approaching, dark-skinned PC striding towards them. "Hey, guys, I don't know who it is, but might we be over-reacting? Maybe she's just a wanderer."

Gaspard waddles cautiously into the door four meters high and wide, pausing when he can see the new person. He hastily backs up, drawing his grimoire with the customary flash of light. "Oh, yeah, it's her." He swallows and looks up at Haseo, quietly discussing smokescreen components with Blue Thunder. "But you never gave up on us when she was bothering us before. If we work together, I'm sure we can do it now."

Kenji breaks off his attempted escape plan and gives a heaving sigh. Now he _can't_ just leave them, boneheaded though they may be. He nods to the gunner and reaches for his twin sickles, and the gunner draws his weapon just as Bordeaux sashays into the yawning door and glances over them with an appraising eye. She smiles, wide but cold, and cracks her knuckles. "Haseo, you brought appetizers."

Kenji snarls, and Rougepelt levels his weapon at her head.

…

Yata keeps his hands pressed sedately together as Fidchell races through the seams in The World. The threads of data have faded and Yata is going purely on instinct at the moment, an act which he hates relying on. Instinct can take you in the wrong direction, hard data will always eventually lead to the right place. Files and areas stream past like rocks along the side of a river bank, and finally he comes to another kink in the seam of The World. _This is it_.

He comes out of another Sign in a stoneworked area of some sort, possibly a temple or crypt. The lingering scent of decay tells him that he followed the right trail, but there's no sign of his anomaly-creating quarry. He steps away from the inscription-laden hallway, following the faint smell until he hears the burst of a high-level fire spell. Yata hurries through the elliptical path to the site of a battle between Bordeaux a party of adventurers. A digitally petrified man leans against the east wall, hands up in warding and mouth open in a scream, every polygon frozen in white-scale monotone.

A steam gunner slashes and parries valiantly with his blade-gun, but Bordeaux expertly throws aside his guard powers a chop down from shoulder to waist, kicking off him to pull out her fetid blade. When his frozen body hits the ground, it breaks apart like a hollow crystal sculpture.

OrLei Zas pounds Bordeaux, knocking her to the ground like a weighted doll, but she snaps back up extremely quickly. Before he can even back up, she slices up through Gaspard's arm, sending him stumbling back with a cry of pain, his grimoire spinning before him in a panicked manner. Gaspard trips and holds up one hand in a futile gesture as he shouts, "Ooow! Help!"

A bestial snarl rumbles from further up the hallway, and Yata looks down to spot Haseo sprinting down the hall from a circular, cracked impression in the hall, red and white lines spreading from the knuckles of his hands. He reaches up above his head, and with a distorted flare his enormous broadsword appears in his hands. Instead of making a long leap and bisecting the PKer vertically like Yata expects, Haseo throws the gigantic weapon and hits Bordeaux in the stomach, sending her crunching into the wall.

Digital fragments shatter out like fragments of real stonework would, and Bordeaux slowly begins to push the stone wreckage off. Despite looking haggard and scratched, her grin is face-splitting and she begins chuckling, which transforms into laughter. "Yes! That's it! That's what I've been searching for all this time!"

Haseo continues to snarl like a rabid dog, taking a limping step forward before drawing his twin blades. Bordeaux pushes at the last stone block and Yata knows that even though he hasn't actually fought using his Avatar since Cubia, his opportunity will not last long. Pressing his hands together and forcing his trepidation to the side, he finds a calm point inside and calls his Avatar. The barrow crypt falls away, replaced by a more celestial backdrop as Fidchell manifests into avatarspace.

Yata is not completely surprised that Bordeaux is the first to realize something has changed. He is surprised when she lifts her fetid blade and looks directly at him, that predatory smile still splitting her face. Yata doesn't even have time to gasp before she swings, and what should be an insurmountable distance for a meter-long sword provides no protection as the sword unfurls, acting more like a tentacle or tightly-wound spring that snaps out and lashes across Fidchell.

Yata flinches back in pain and backs away, but before he can set himself for combat, he realizes something. The fetid blade that lashed across avatarspace was actually painful. It hurt almost as badly as feeling Skeith's scythe back in the AIDA Incident. Yata holds out one hand, letting it drift down a little just like his very first battle, and a series of geometric designs inscribed in five circles like the major points of the compass spring into being, their golden light burning brighter until they suddenly snap closed around a roiling sphere.

The orb races out at Bordeaux, whose smile fades at the attack beyond game parameters. She tries to run for a moment, but makes no progress before it slams into her. Bordeaux cries out as something like black fire engulfs her and the gold-scribed planes box her in, compressing until a sudden explosion blasts out, sending tiny shards of something bone-like in all directions.

Fidchell turns to Haseo, by now covered in an unfamiliar red-and-white epitaph pattern, snarling like a cornered beast and stumbling almost randomly. _He seems very much like me,_ Yata notes, _when I finally succumbed to the wild of emotion_. He calls out once for Haseo's player to try to reassert control, and in an instant the drunken-like wandering ceases.

Haseo looks straight at Fidchell, eyes burning red, freezing in a crouch as if ready to pounce.

When he springs, it's with surprising speed given that Haseo is still in his player form. It's as if there is some conflict going on, though whether the player is fighting to draw out the epitaph or keep it down he's unsure. Either way, Haseo dashes at Fidchell, snapping his hands out to the sides, his twin blades shooting into his hands as if they'd been stored in hidden sleeve sheathes, and the lines of his epitaph pattern extend over the dual blades.

Knowing Fidchell is better at a distance than up close, Yata backs away and rises up. The instant he starts to lift away, Haseo bursts into a jump faster than Yata had dared guess. Putting his whole body into a powerful dual stroke, the burning red-outlined weapons are about to strike through Yata's Avatar when the mask glows. Fidchell teleports backwards not a moment too soon, and Haseo's hand sickles pass through empty space. As soon as Fidchell rematerializes, Haseo's eyes snap onto him and – against all logical explanation – he throws both short blades. They fly slightly out to the sides like boomerangs, then curve in and plunge into the Avatar.

Yata grunts and clenches his teeth. It wasn't quite as bad as Skeith's scythe, but it was more than a simple player character's blow. It's obvious that he is out of control, so Yata shoots back and draws out the disks with the jeweled eyes, arranging all four of them between he and the enraged player. Haseo catches the dual blades and, despite the fact that his feet shouldn't be able to propel him, starts to fly straight at Fidchell again. Yata's attack is ready first. He takes time to aim carefully, two of the burning gold beams boxing him in and one striking just off of dead on.

Haseo gives one long, last cry before arcing back and falling, the epitaph pattern dissolving from his body. Yata unsummons his avatar, the scene returning to the barrow tunnels. Two petrified players, one scattered like a broken salt statue, an unconscious Haseo lying on his back with limbs akimbo, but Bordeaux is gone.

"What . . . was that? What happened?" a shaky voice floats out from deeper south in the hallway, and Yata looks up to see a warlock who traveled with Haseo in the past . . . Gaspard, if memory serves.

"This area has been experiencing technical difficulties. I am an administrator, Yata," he states. They met in the online party that Haseo's friends had before he went to college, but that was a year ago. "I'm afraid that I'll have to ask you to leave so I can seal the area for maintenance."

Gaspard takes a few moments for deep breaths, taking in his petrified comrades briefly before looking around before his eyes finally come to a stop on the white-clad adept rogue. "Haseo!" The warlock looks up at the system admin. "Is he going to be okay?"

Yata pauses by Haseo and presses one hand into the cracked stone floor beside his head. Untextured polygons glare up through the cracks in the floor and walls, and even without culling Fidchell's powers he knows that code is spewing out of several cracks like sparks from a live power line. Still, Haseo's player and connectivity status appear when Yata runs an admin scan, so things seem as normal as possible. He looks back up at Gaspard and gives a supportive nod. "Don't worry, he'll be fine. I'll make sure of it."

…

Author's Notes: I'm aware that the GU games only allowed parties of 3. A lot of signs point to larger units – in the anime there's the battle in Hulle Granz in SIGN or TaN and the Twilight Brigade in Roots, and numerous cutscenes in G.U. indicate all of the "Infinity Eight" traveling together as the fight against AIDA and Cubia ramps up. If you disagree, then presume that one of the updates in the interceding year between AIDA and now upped the party limit.

Another announcement: I enjoy writing a lot, but I write as more than a simple exercise in writing, and I have a lot of projects. Since I have to economize my time, I focus on projects that are getting the most feedback. I don't get emails on story hits (but do have fun reading whatever you please), but I do get email when I get messages or reviews, and those serve as reminders to keep a project promptly updated.


	10. Do Not Pass Go

**Second Shot**

Chapter 10:

Do Not Pass Go

Morino Yuuichi slides his backpack off his back, catches it on his elbow, and uses its momentum to swing it up and send it squarely onto the table by his worn recliner. Setting down his bicycle helmet with one hand, he rubs his free hand through his short brown hair to try to brush out the helmet-induced-styling. Side-stepping around a shipping box being used as a temporary recycling bin, he steps over a stack of his old Economics textbooks, then sidles in front of his recliner and drops gratefully into it.

After scribbling through his college work for the day, Yuuichi is pleased to see that he still has a few hours to spare for The World. After taking care of a dearth of emails and guildmaster-related business, he finally lifts the M2D from around his neck and logs in. The stormy city of Fomoraig materializes around him and despite the intended gloom of the environment, Silabus takes a moment to savor the intricacy of the rainy environment before running down into the city. The dugout-style storefronts pass before he reaches the entrance to the Guild At-Home.

The stone-and-earth structure yawning up from yet another sunken dugout point, fortified by heavy timber, looks more like the entrance to a bunker than a welcoming door. Of course, it fits with the surrounding city. Making sure to wear a smile before entering, Silabus selects Canard and enters his guild. The yawning space before him looks much like the guild's At-Home back when they had earned their entrance in Breg Epona, though the entry space is at least twice as large and contains over a dozen doors (most through hallways to the sides) into rooms used for instruction and skill practice areas.

A few players mill in the expansive entry foyer, presided over by his own styled Guide Grunty. While a few team members are familiar, Silabus finds his attention drawn to the waving from an Edge Punisher in a green dress and frequent shop volunteer – Saburou. She jogs closer and greets, "Heya. Have you heard from Tudaluu? I thought we were going to wait before trying to upgrade the guild"

Silabus laughs. "Yeah. We haven't even had this guild upgrade six months and he wants to organize quest parties." He chuckles, then rubs the back of his neck. Coming in here this late reminds him of an eleven-thirty a few days ago when he logged in to see Haseo dash right past like he was an unknown player. "I've been wanting to ask someone, and you ran into Haseo before the tournaments so you might know other places he hangs out . . . have you seen him? He's been acting strange. He's on a lot, but he's always busy. Even back in the tournament, when I suspected he was doing other things, he would take a break when I invited him out on a quest. Now he's always got an excuse to be somewhere else. He's not acting like himself."

Saburou leans against the wall, mulling over the statement. After a moment she looks up at him. "I'd say that you know him better than I do. He was like a completely different person when we all met in that online party last year." Her eyes roll up and her oversized headdress jostles as she looks up. "I think I saw him a couple weeks ago, arguing with some new player with red pigtails. Haven't seen her since, but when Gaspard was at the shop last he mentioned that Haseo was going with him on a party quest."

Her eyes unfocus and Silabus can tell that she's examining the game menus. After a moment she looks back at him. "Well, he's marked as 'busy', but it says both he and Gaspard are on now. Why don't we go find him?"

…

The second-year med student adjusts her carryall bag strap on her shoulder, almost pointing upwards with the motion. The boy she's talking to _still_ doesn't get the hint, so instead of trying a fourth cue, Kubo Moe outright states in a cold deadpan, "My eyes are up here, bub."

Her fellow student gapes once like a fish, then regains control of himself and swallows, looking all the way across the room as a blush spreads over his face. "Uh, I . . . uh . . . sorry, Kubo-chan. I just . . ."

Now Moe contains a sigh, finding no easy escape from the boy verbally tripping over himself. She's well aware that most boys are attracted to her, invitations to dates over lunch or dinner were daily occurrences when she started nursing courses. She mentally meanders around the fact that she exploited this fact to save money on food her first year of med school; playing eye candy for small benefits has gotten old and she wishes that at least the outright jerks would generally leave her alone.

"_Asa mo, yoru mo, koikogarete_—"

Scrambling a tad more than might be polite, Moe snatches out her phone with an '_I need to take this_' gesture before she even sees her Doll Syndrome mentor's name on the caller ID. "Kubo here. What can I do for you, Miyamoto-sensei?"

At hearing her say 'sensei', her fellow student and occasional thorn-in-the-side wanders away. Moe hears the flap of paper and the shuffling of his cell phone being jammed between his shoulder and ear – she knows him well enough to guess the familiar behavior. "We just received funding. About half a dozen shell companies and a couple trust funds were just redirected to us. In the past six weeks, twenty-eight cases of Doll Syndrome have been reported in Kanto hospitals."

Moe breathes in. She was interested in solving the riddle of Doll Syndrome, but most of it was her desire to help her friend Shino. Miyamoto is one of the brilliant yet slightly eccentric researchers who can acknowledge all of the danger of a disease and still marvel on how it works. She notices with no small trepidation that while what he's describing could be both good and bad, it has that excited tone of voice that shows he thinks it is fascinating. "What else, Miyamoto-sensei?"

"Just this morning, Azai Nobutomo was found in his family's condominium in uptown Otsuki. The results of the autopsy should be in before six PM, and I wanted you back in the project."

Kubo Moe is speechless for several seconds. World-wide, there were only eleven fatalities connected with Doll Syndrome, and all of them had more serious extenuating factors like days of dehydration before being found too late. An autopsy could mean only one thing: Doll Syndrome had claimed yet another victim. But how? Almost all of the surviving victims eventually recovered following the Third Network Crisis, there were only a few with lasting, significant neurological damage. Miyamoto called mentioning the resurgence of cases before, but a death . . . "Oh gods. How?"

"It could only be the syndrome. His brother found him in his room, sitting in front of his computer. It was still running The World, though something happened to the connection and the computer was corrupted. He just had lunch at his cram school cafeteria earlier that day and was described as being in 'perfectly average health'."

Moe takes a deep breath and squeezes her brown eyes shut for a moment. It doesn't change anything. "Another case in The World. No. This can't be happening. It was fixed. Everything went away in 2020!"

"I'm afraid not," doctor Miyamoto replies gravely. "If you'll send my office your school supervisor of employment I can get started."

Tabby looks down at the slightly-too-small desks that colleges loved supplying. Starting into her third of five years in medicine, most of it now for physical therapy for more conventional injuries, has isolated her flexibility. Working with Miyamoto wasn't even a question while it was all for Shino, but now that she'd started on a new track she can't help but hesitate. "I'd love to help, Miyamoto-sensei, but I'm not even a graduate student. Wouldn't there be a lot of better-qualified neurologists in the Tokyo area?"

"I'm aware of where you stand now, Kubo-chan," he answers with an authoritative tone. "But you were one of my most productive research associates. Nobody was more determined than you and I to solve this epidemic, and now that it's coming out of relapse I ask you to come back and help us fight it."

A moment passes with nothing but shuffling of students in the adjacent hall before Miyamoto quotes Ishii Shirou, "A good doctor heals patients, a great doctor heals nations."

…

A rattling sound of metal and plastic on wood precedes the click of a door's magnetically-controlled bolt sliding out of locked position. The door of the humble apartment swings slowly open with the faintest creek of its hinges. Brushing his curly brown hair out of the way as he looks into the apartment, Shinichi takes one step inside. Hearing nothing, he glances both directions into the hall and quickly stuffs his magnetic lock-picking kit back into a pocket inside his carryall bag.

"Kenji?"

The lights are on, but there's no answer. Shinichi curses. He even tried calling Kenji's phone, but received no reply. _This isn't like Kenji_. After another paranoid glance into the hall, he dashes inside and looks around. The Centrix computer he left with Kenji last week is sitting neatly against the far wall, just underneath the sole window. While that was originally why he snuck inside the building, now he's concerned by the lack of word from his childhood friend. Kenji was one of the most reliable people he knew . . .

A body with long, onyx-black hair is sprawled next to the A-11 computer, posed as if somebody punched him straight from the computer. "Ken-kun!"

Shinichi drops his carryall bag and races over to his old friend. The 'blue kitsune' is out cold, and his breathing is shallow. "Ken!" He grabs his friend by the shoulders and shakes him, but it only makes the hacker's head loll over to the other side. "Kenji! Arakawa Kenji! Shit!"

Shinichi snatches out his phone, then freezes. If he called rescue services from here with his own phone, they'd be able to lock onto his time and location. Despite having encryption, he doesn't like the idea of also putting his voice through an emergency operator's station – they record, and while he's wanted throughout Kanto, the police don't have any idea he fled Kyoto thanks to a false identity. He pockets his phone, but looks up and around.

Sitting invitingly on the corner of the kitchenette's counter is the pocket tablet that Kenji uses as a cell phone. Shinichi almost trips over Kenji's body in his rush to get to it. Blinking out of sleep mode, the five-by-five grid of dots in the common smart phone security code appears. Guessing randomly, Shinichi passes his thumb over the dots, drawing a quick horizontal line and long diagonal like most people do. A second passes after his thumb lifts, and the screen returns to the grid.

"Shit man! Why do ya' gotta be so friggin' security conscious all the time?"

He tries another common combination that fails, then stops to regain control of his breathing. Kenji was always a bit of an odd duck, which is probably one reason why he fit into Shinichi's little gang back in Kyoto. "Should'a figured he wouldn't use what everybody else is doin'."

_Akemi scoffs and throws the empty soda can at Kenji. The can hits the fifteen-year-old just a shade on the feminine side of androgynous and he reflexively catches the falling object, throwing it into the ground at twice the force. "Aho! I told you to stop throwing that damn sugar-water at me!"_

_Shinichi cuts in between his two street friends before a fight can escalate – he knows very well how easily his wanna-be-hacker friend gets mad, and it's going to get him into serious trouble some day. "Hey, both of you, chill. Aki-kun, look around for a note, people are lazy and tend to leave reminders if they forget the side door lock at work. Ken-kun, we've broken through this kinda lock before, we just don't have the full combination. Now what do you know about it?"_

"_Well," Kenji hesitantly ponders, fists only slowly opening. "This model of Silverlight keypad locks always uses four digits. The fact that this one is old and outside actually helps us, because it's gonna get grimy, but the buttons that are used will be slightly cleaner." He pauses and kneels down at the keypad, scrutinizing the twelve buttons. "Here, the two, see how it's a little more shiny? And the seven?"_

"_Yeah, yeah," Shinichi prods impatiently, glancing around for security or office workers. "The seven is the last digit, and the two's third, but that still leaves two digits. If we punch in the wrong code, it's going to ping the security office and we're never going to get out with those motherboards."_

_Kenji frowns for a moment, then stares at the keypad for several seconds. In a burst of motion, before Shinichi can stop him, Kenji's right arm comes up and he jabs a sequence of numbers. Shinichi is about to curse when an electrical click emanates from the door. "I don't believe it," Shinichi breathes as he opens the door. He hisses Akemi closer and she joins the trio._

_As they slip inside, Shinichi smiles and smacks Kenji in the arm. "How'd you know the correct sequence?"_

_Kenji just smiles back. "I went with my favourite number. Always start with four."_

Shinichi purses his lips, then draws the kanji for 'four'. It looks awkward in the points of the grid, but as soon as he finishes the last stroke, the tablet loads to the main menu. Breathing a sigh of relief, Shinichi brings up the phone function and dials 1 – 1 – 9.

After three rings, the phone clicks and he hears, "Emergency operator, how can I help you?"

"Help," Shinichi awkwardly grinds out in a tense, lowered voice. It sounds nothing like his or Kenji's voice, but he was never good at impressions anyway and it just needs to sound like something not him. "My heart feels like it's burning up! I can't see!"

Shinichi glances up awkwardly as the operator gives the same pointless speech about remaining calm. He gives the apartment number, but he's jumped the back wall so many times that he isn't sure what the address of Kenji's new home is. Squinting hard, the wall doesn't reveal the answer, so he goes with his best guess, an "I think", and gives his name as Arakawa Kenji, then drops the pad and bolts. He wants his old friend to be safe, but he doesn't want to take the chance that the paramedics will call the police if they find him here.

…

Author's Notes:

Some may notice here that the guild Canard can be reached through multiple points – here Silabus enters through Formoraig, and in "Old New Friends" Haseo enters through Breg Epona. This is not an accident – I always thought it was stupid that a guild could no longer access its own At-Home from a previous city after you upgraded. Think about it, that means that Canard, a _noob support guild_ would be _unusable_ by new players. I thought it more sensible that you can enter a guild from whichever city the guild can access, you just return to the same city you entered from.

To those curious, the lyrics heard on Tabby/Moe's ring tone is the opening line to O2 by Orange Range, the opening song to season 2 of Code Geass. The translation of the opening is roughly "During mornings, and nights too, I yearn for love. I'll become a star to protect you, without knowing the whereabouts of the battle." I considered some characters having songs specifically for different people on their call list, but inevitably somebody's boss would get Star Wars' Imperial March.

119 is the emergency number for medical and fire emergency in Japan.

Don't forget to read and review.


	11. Event Horizon

**Second Shot**

Chapter 11:

Event Horizon

"No," Yata clearly intones, crossing his arms as if to emphasize the point. "Ovan, Sakubo, and Endrance's accounts – besides yours – have been deleted. Those are half of the Epitaphs of Morganna, somewhere out in The World. Atoli hasn't played since the online party almost a year and a half ago, her Avatar has almost certainly migrated. Kuhn is going to be moving soon when the journalism office he's moving to opens and won't be able to put forth the time needed – even _if_ his Avatar hasn't migrated, which we haven't tested. We don't know what precisely is going on with Haseo's Avatar beyond a strong suspicion that his new player has not yet fully awakened—"

"That's exactly why it's too dangerous, master Yata!" Astrid argues. The busty PC swipes one hand to try to punctuate her point. "He can't be trusted, and if anything happens, _you_ are the only one with an Avatar. _You_ are the only one who could subdue him. It was enough of a chance with Misaki-Haseo, this one is even more unstable. He's got a commuted prison term and a record of violent outbursts as long as my arm!"

"He is also uniquely armed in a manner that we will need, as well as possessing the capability to tap that armament. These self-propagating fragments are spreading at an increasing rate. Even if we succeed in recruiting and awakening him, that leaves us at three Avatars against these shadows of . . . Cubia, AIDA, the Rebirth, I'm not even sure what their origin may have been."

Astrid crosses her arms with a frown. Yata has a point, she acknowledges that, but the stakes are so high that she can't just let it go. Behind her M2D headset, Saeki Reiko shakes her head forlornly at herself. She never really could let it go; the anger that defined her since childhood and likely helped her bring out Tarvos was really just traded for workaholism. Reiko tells herself it just means she has less time to look away from the truth. "Master Yata at least Misaki—"

"Had a whole host of problems, including an obsession that rather undeniably helped him make it through the AIDA Incident," Yata counters. He looks down his nose at her, the gesture one of scrutiny and concern. Reiko was like this before when they were still trying to decide whether Haseo or Tabby was the holder of the first Epitaph of Morganna. He's tempted to simply tell her not to interfere, but she's no longer his subordinate and by now he should be able to trust her judgement. She turns around and strides out of the Serpent of Lore, not quite with a huff but not with the eager gait that would have been a positive sign. _I hope we aren't both about to make a mistake_.

…

White meets his gaze, and Kenji blinks a couple of times before fully opening his eyes. His heart immediately starts to pound, adolescence-instilled fear of the government along with his close friend anger when he realizes he's in an infirmary. However, it only takes a moment to realize that it's far too spacious and up-scale for an average infirmary. The hacker-turned-cook presses a palm over his eye and tries to remember what just happened. _I was playing The World, but then . . . What happened after Bordeaux tried to PK my party?_

This time Kenji does shake his head, now genuinely worried that he's had a head injury. He sits up, noticing a distinct lack of injuries. _What on earth am I doing in a hospital if I didn't get jumped?_ He glances around, but fortunately he's in a bay with eight beds split between the north and south walls. Six other patients inhabit the bay with him, five of them being elderly people hooked up to heart monitor machines. Across the bay from him sleeps a teenage girl with an IV line.

Movement in the corner draws his eye and he waves to a woman in a doctor's coat. The first detail, beside her conventionally dark hair, is that she seems a little tall for most Japanese. As she finishes looking over her current patient, he notes that she has a few wisps of gray hair and the creases at the corners of her eyes of years of hard, mostly unthanked work. Her movements are practiced and purposeful and her penstrokes are neat and have that rapidity imbued only with years of dedicated practice. "Excuse me, doctor?"

She looks up, unsurprised to see him up (perhaps she heard him wake), and finishes a few penstrokes before striding to his bedside. "Good morning, I'm resident neurologist Kaga. How are you feeling?"

Kenji slides his hand down from his face. "Actually, just confused. I don't seem to have any open wounds or anything, so I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing in a hospital. When did I get here?"

She strides to the foot of his bed to glance at a tag, then switches her pad of paper for a heavy tablet. After a few taps that he assumes is logging in or entering his patient number, she reads the screen. "Not everybody who ends up in a hospital has broken a leg or cut themselves." Doctor Kaga squints at the pad. "You were brought in by ambulance last night at ten-thirty-six in the evening. Paramedics managed to stabilize your vital functions, but you were partially unresponsive to pain and stimulus." She looks back up at him. "More than a few symptoms of Doll Syndrome, I was worried for a bit that we were going to have another serious case until you woke up. How are you feeling now?"

"Fine, I guess." Kenji looks at the table beside his bed. The drawers are all closed, but he doesn't see any of his things sitting on top of it. "Well, since I don't seem to be in any danger of bleeding out or anything, could I check out and get back to work? I don't want to give my boss any excuse to find somebody else."

"We have a brain scan scheduled at 10:05, interpretation should be completed half an hour after that," she states professionally. After another series of penstrokes on her tablet, she looks back up with an amiable smile. "I'm sorry, doctor Miyamoto is insisting. He's Japan's leading expert on Doll Syndrome and he's putting pressure on every doctor on Honshu with the recent resurgence." She glances back at Kenji and lowers her tablet a little. "I'm sorry for the inconvenience. Do you have any friends or family you want the hospital to contact?"

The hacker can't keep away a crestfallen look and he simply lies back down. A small piece of his mind tries to cling to his old emotional shield of anger, but for some reason he just feels too tired. Staring up at the ceiling, he shakes his head. She nods sympathetically, and he brushes his long, onyx-black hair out of his face. "The only friends who'd miss me are online." He blinks, and a memory resurfaces unbidden.

_If you can't earn them yourself, were they ever yours to lose?_

"And maybe not even all of them."

…

His white coat almost gleams, its stark light color easily managing to stand out against the wasteland around the party. Taihaku, former Sage Palace emperor, gazes out forlornly at the expansive desert. There is no sharp shadow, no sign of either crevasse or lost tower. The only movement outside the party is another giant scorpion walking over a dune in the distance.

Uninterested in the miniboss creature, Taihaku looks down at his compatriot. A twin-blade PC with a wide red newsboy cap and close-fitting clothing resembling a jumpsuit, he notices the scorpion as well. "Man! This place sucks. Everything's defense is so high, the experience isn't even worth the time it takes to kill them. We should've—"

An insectile squeal peals from the scorpion's last location behind a rise of sand, and both players look over towards it. Dust blows in the wind. A beat passes before Taihaku takes one step towards it, then settles into a steady walk. Redcap follows, hesitantly. "Master Taihaku, I thought we agreed that if we couldn't find the crevasse that we would leave. Let's check a swamp or forest area, those ones challenge something other than endurance anyway."

There is no response from the dark-skinned, white-clad player, he simply continues walking towards the rise. Redcap sighs and dashes ahead. "I'm telling you, nothing's . . ."

Then he reaches the crest of the sand dune.

It looks like the scorpion is decaying. Not the proper 'dead, monotone, and fading away' that a defeated enemy should be, but like some real animal had flipped it over and torn it open down the torso. It almost looks like a wooden chest burst open from the inside, edges glowing with a light that on closer inspection is a mass of ones and zeroes drifting away from the broken monster.

Now curious himself, Redcap dashes closer. He comes to almost four meters when the scorpion suddenly shifts like it had been nudged from beneath. The fuzzy 'glowing' of binary floating from the wound intensifies, and then jagged shapes start crawling from the wound. As they exit, the things almost seem like moon crabs built with poorly fitting polygons of bright code that give them an appearance strangely like bleached bones.

Redcap keeps his eyes on the approaching mob, and switches his chat from team to global before querying, "Master Taihaku, do you think we ran into an instance event?"

The once emperor draws his steam-carbine, the rather futuristic weapon covered in tubing welded to the gun. "No."

Redcap steps back once from the mob of dozens of crab-like things before the first one reaches a claw towards him. Redcap hops back with an, "Ow!" before the encroaching mob reaches him from the sides. The twin-blade slashes expertly, each swing smashing apart the code-bugs like crystal, but the fragments simply scatter over the rushing mob and more crawl at him like a tide of little monsters. The swarm finally reaches him from three sides and Redcap starts crying out in pain.

"Plectra Bullet!"

The volley of fire from Taihaku's customized weapon blasts a score of the code-crabs, but they continue to pour from the scorpion like water gushing into the breach of a ship. More and more crawl up the twin-blade even as he fights the pain and tries to strike at them, only catching a handful of every dozen that stabs at him. Finally, one strike causes Redcap to trip and he falls backwards, quickly swarmed by the bugged monsters.

"Dust Bullet!"

The steamgun carbine whines with a brief charge-up before unleashing a softball-sized sphere of light upwards. The burst rises out of view, then multiplies and slams down into the desert like a rain of comets. The bugged critters shatter and Taihaku's player flinches under his M2D at the sound of his speakers sputtering at the carnage.

Redcap surges unsteadily to his feet and doesn't even bother trying to retrieve his dropped weapons in his retreat. He stumbles and white shards fall from his PC like snow. The twin-blade crosses both hands over his stomach in an effort to ward off the pain as flakes of code fall from his PC. "I can't use my feathers! None of my items are working!" His eyes twitch, glancing desperately through menus before he finally looks back up at Taihaku, charging another shot at the encroaching mob. "Let's get out of here!"

An orb grows at the tip of Taihaku's customized steam gun before zooming out and bursting over a three-meter area. The white-clad player doesn't even spare a stony gaze to his twin-blade companion as he steadily backs up, charging another shot. The seemingly endless swarm, the bugged creatures, it was familiar from the battle against Cubia a year and a half ago. _Haseo_. "I have just the person who needs to know about this."

…

Standing in the bridge of the Netslum, Zelkova's hands race over the three holographic keyboards arrayed before him, eyes flickering between the twenty screens projected in a semidome array. The darkness from the shuttered window only seems to emphasize the bright, scrolling text and images. One of the holographic screens freezes.

Zelkova is so surprised that he stops for a full second. "This is not a good progression. He isn't ready yet."

…

Blue rings fade down as Haseo warps into Breg Epona. He glances to his left and right at the crowds of players either in transit or chatting by the item shops. The capital of Steam Gunners is buzzing with activity, and Kenji presses the control stick to break straight into a run to the player-run guild shops. After hunting for rare ingredients, he gives an obligatory thanks to Kestrel's shop manager and turns around to almost bump into Kaede. "Kaede-san, excuse me. It's good to see you."

She smiles and the butterflies in Kenji's stomach flutter. It looks like she's about to say something when a shout draws both players' attention.

"Hey! Haseo!" Gaspard waves. Standing behind him is a tall, rather skinny male player in bold green, with a girl in a pale-green dress just beside him. "Silabus wanted to talk with you! Saburou is even here, too!"

Gaspard's smile wars with the unpleasant feeling churning within Kenji. _Silabus . . . I've been avoiding him for months_. The lift to the chaos gate area slides open, disgorging more players that scatter into the city, except for a dark-skinned PC in an elegant white longcoat with purple trim who takes his time. Silabus takes one step forward, all motions indicating the beginnings of a speech or at least series of questions, when the PC in white strides around him and straight up to Haseo.

"Master Haseo, the bugged monsters are back."

"The what?" Kenji asks, eyebrow raised, no idea what this 'Taihaku' player is talking about. This then results in the Canard trio looking at him oddly, until he realizes that Taihaku had established a limited group chat. Kenji nods behind his M2D, noticing a few players including the Canard group standing before him were also included. Why would he add them?

"The bugged creatures that have been recurring, I am certain I recognize their local group movements from the Cubia gomorras."

"Not that we should be discussing these things in the open," Astrid states just shy of an authoritative snap. Kenji almost jumps when she strides out from behind Taihaku, then checks the group chat list, notices a scroll bar, and clicks down once to see her name there.

Kenji only narrowly avoids slapping off his M2D with the face-to-palm motion that follows.

Fortunately, Silabus also seems slightly confused about her presence in the chat group. "Excuse me, but I signed CC Corp's non-disclosure agreement. How is it that you—?"

"It's Pi," Saburou explains. "Don't you recognize the imperious swagger?" she teases. Astrid crosses her arms and makes a quarter turn away.

"Regardless," Taihaku states in an even tone that Kenji senses would've been a bark from a less restrained individual. "I'm sure that the company is suppressing the news, but it is a serious problem." He looks up at Astrid. "If your confirmation just now that Redcap's player Hosokawa was found in a coma is true, then things may be developing even faster than the virus that preceded Cubia."

"Maybe so," Astrid bites off, her arms still crossed over her form-fitted steel breastplate. "But this Haseo isn't equipped to handle the problem."

Kenji lunges forward one step, blood pounding in his ears, a fist held up in lieu of being able to draw weapons in town. "Don't leap to every excuse you can to demean me, corporate lackey."

Now Taihaku joins Silabus and Gaspard in blinking and looking up at Haseo. Kaede coughs daintily into her fist in a distinctly uncomfortable manner. A beat passes before Silabus rubs the back of his head before stating, "That's . . . not the favorite nickname I remember Haseo using with Pi."

Now Astrid turns her considerable force of glaring on Haseo. Kenji can practically feel beads of sweat roll down the back of his neck before she snidely states, "You were _still_ leading them all on?"

Saburou raises one eyebrow, but it is Kaede that is the first to actually ask, "What exactly do you mean, Reiko-san?"

The gears in Kenji's head whirl a million miles an hour, and time seems to slow down. _How do I get out of this? How can I possibly get out of this?_ Astrid's mouth opens and Kenji can practically hear the universe laughing at him, complete with the distorted slowdown they often have in movies. But he knows what's coming, and for the first time in his life he'd rather be back in Yamashina penitentiary being jumped by a gang of lifers than see what's coming next.

"_That _Haseo isn't Misaki Ryou."

The circle of players is still as death, the dichotomy of the activity around them only adding surrealism to the end of all of Kenji's careful pretending. The days of gaming and laughing together, the hours of researching in other browsing windows while vaguely avoiding answering questions, the minutes of cringing and hoping that he doesn't slip up too badly . . . the moments of watching their faces light up in a smile . . .

"_That_ is just a hacker _convict_ who stole Haseo's account."

It feels like the universe is coming apart at the seams, and the looks on their faces transforming from confusion to dawning understanding and onwards . . . it's even worse when Kaede begins to metamorphose from understanding to a horrified embarrassment. She shakes her head, squeezing her eyes closed. "All the things . . . I . . . I even told you about my . . ."

If Kenji wasn't already sitting on a cushion he would've hit the floor. For half a second it feels like his heart stops, and it takes all of his will to look from one dawning face to the next. Gaspard takes a moment longer than the others to pass out of disbelief, the hint of 'no, it can't be' clear even though he can't find his voice. "Gaspard . . ." Kenji pauses, having no idea what to say. A gloved hand moving draws his attention to the last member of the group still dallying with indecision, and he reaches a hesitant hand out to her, "Kaede. Please, I never meant for you to find out—"

The slap echoes through the motley assortment of players before he can even finish 'like this'. The PC in the red kimono turns and dashes off into the thinning crowd. Saburou steps forward, raising a finger but only managing, "Now just a min—"

Kenji doesn't even realize he powers a backhand, an abnormal flash of red flaring on contact as he bashes her out of his way. The PC flies like a rag doll and smashes into a stone wall. Haseo sprints off into the crowd after his friend, shouting desperately, "Kaede! Please!"

He finally manages to spot her at the lift to the Chaos Gate, but the rings of a log out pass over her before he can reach her, and his hands close over empty air. "No! Wait!"

…

Author's Notes: Poor Saburou, that's the second time she's been beaten up by a Haseo who's barely aware she's there. Those of you who've seen the latter half of .Hack/Roots know the first incident.

Don't forget to leave a review.


	12. He Who Fights Alone

**Second Shot**

Chapter 12:

He Who Fights Alone . . .

"Yeah, I've talked to all of them but Taihaku," Kasumi Tomonari states, placing his cell phone between his ear and shoulder so he can heft a heavy cardboard box. "Most of them even agreed that while what he did was wrong, what Reiko did was too far." Tomonari sidles through a doorway and awkwardly approaches his desk. Bending at the knees so he can carefully slide the box onto the empty, flat furniture, he gives it a final push to make sure it's stable before adding, "It hurt him pretty bad. He hasn't logged back in since and won't even respond to our emails. Gaspard's been sending him PMs every day."

Tomonari pauses at that statement. For all the appearance he gave – no, that he cultivated – he knew what it was like to be in love, or at least think he was, and then have that ripped away. That pain faded to an ache for him, but it must still be raw for whoever the player is behind the current Haseo. The strange family dynamic that Haseo's new player had was something Tomonari couldn't quite wrap his head around, but he presumed it was much the same as his own difficulty.

Thankfully, instead of trailing off into that depressing line of thought, it reminds him of his conversation with Yata yesterday. "It doesn't help that Yata still wants him to awaken so we can go out hunting these bug monsters or whatever it is."

"What?" Misaki Ryou queries in a mildly shocked tone from the other side of the phone.

"He's not that picky," the player behind Kuhn adds. "Actually, I thought he was going to call you and try to get you to come back. You actually _did_ awaken and save the world, after all. This guy can get a couple of the glowy lines, but he's never awakened yet."

A moment of silence passes on his cell phone as Kuhn's player opens a large box on the floor and starts sliding his computer tower out. Finally, Ryou responds. "I thought I made it clear to Yata. I'm not sure how ready I am to go back in. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I was just a kid bent on fear and revenge back then. I wanted Shino back and I wanted everybody between me and her to suffer. I'm not that way anymore. I'm halfway through college now, and when this semester ends I was going to take a trip up to my girlfriend's and propose. I don't even know if I _could_ summon Skeith anymore."

Ryou takes a deep breath and Tomonari senses he has more to say. "Hell, you were there at the online party last year. You more than most of them should understand. I want to move on with my life, Kuhn, not go back to the way things used to be. I almost lost a lot more than the year I spent getting Shino back."

"Yeah," Tomonari acknowledges sedately. It was a topic most people tip-toed around during the big online party, but Shino and Haseo's falling out was something most people knew about. The 26-year-old journalist-to-be takes a moment to pull the computer tower fully out of the box before checking the computer for damage or dust. "I feel even worse about the whole thing because I keep wondering if I could've said something else when he came to me for help. He's not a bad guy, Ryou, he's just got his issues. Sad thing is, I kinda got the impression that The World was the only thing he had. Unfortunately, despite the problems I had with the guy, Yata might be onto something and with Pi . . . Astrid—I mean Reiko—gone, he's got no one to turn to. I don't like asking you to come back, but you used to—"

"I used to rage around like a demon while I was trying to get back Shino. It was nine months, Kuhn," the original player behind Haseo says with a gravity that normally doesn't carry in his tone. "Nine months before I started to wake up enough to feel despair. Even if I got Shino back, she never had eyes for anyone but Ovan. It wasn't until the Holy Palace before I started to realize there was still something for me, and when Chika . . ."

Ryou's voice cracks, and it takes Tomonari a moment to remember Ryou's fiancee, the girl who used to play Alkaid before the two of them left The World for college. Tomonari opens another box with cables that he swears have tangled themselves, and then Ryou speaks again. "When Chika went into a coma, I contemplated jumping off the school rooftop."

Ryou takes a deep breath, and Tomonari suspects he's finally getting to the crux of why he's not coming back. "If I tried to go back to playing Haseo, you can be sure as hell that Chika's not going to sit back and do nothing. She'll start playing too, even though she never even had an Avatar. I almost lost Alkaid once, I am **NOT** going to lose her again."

Tomonari sets down the tangle of computer cords to devote his full attention to the conversation for a moment. "You're probably right, but if it's not you then it's gotta be him. Thing is, how do we convince him to come back?"

Silence passes for a few moments before Ryou says, "I have an idea. . ."

…

Kenji bellows as he snaps his hands down, the padded staff representing a yari slamming into the mat. He follows with a rearward jab that is seamlessly transformed into a rising swing, the faux-yari slashing upwards in a move drawn from naginata-jutsu. The butt of the staff swings out to his left to fend off a glancing blow before Kenji suddenly switches direction and executes a wide, powerful sweep. Proper kobujutsu never taught him to make such wide, flashy moves, but it was one of his most effective moves as Haseo in The World and remains a habit he can't break.

The padded faux-yari of his senpai stabbing straight into his stomach knocks Kenji off his feet. His opponent peaceably strides forward, his weapon sliding down into a relaxed grip. "Arakawa-kouhai, I know that you've got a good deal of real-world experience from Kyoto, but you need to remember the core tenants of martial arts. You'd be much farther on this if you'd come more often than when your parole officer found out you were getting into fights. Control your emotions—"

Instead of politely listening, or using one of the rising motions that the school might have taught, Kenji propels himself to his feet with a kip-up and powers his padded faux-yari in a vertical chop at his mentor, who has to put considerable strength into the block but still manages to fully halt the attack. Kenji snaps back and throws his yari into motion. "I didn't join one of the namby-pamby schools of 'martial arts' for touchy-feely philosophy," he retorts as he is again deflected, falls back a step, and smoothly advances on a new perceived weakness in his mentor's defenses. "If I wanted philosophy, I'd avow myself to be a better Buddhist. I came here instead to learn _real_ martial arts. Yamada-senpai."

Yamada frowns, the politeness of his reference dulled by the way it was tacked on almost as an afterthought. "You came here because your parole board judged you to need something to help you achieve balance. You've got almost no control over your anger beyond hiding it, Arakawa, and if you don't do anything it'll consume you like a fire consumes even the mightiest castle."

Their padded yaris clash in a rapid exchange of thrust, slash, and parry that continues for several seconds before both withdraw, breathing heavily. "What if anger is all that I have? How can I throw away what I am?"

…

His pocket tablet resonates with _The Far Side of the Steep Mountains_ and Kenji groans from his indoor hammock. He looks blearily through the room and spots his old alarm clock, clearly displaying the time at 16:10. _Ugh, can't people let a caterer catch some sleep? I don't have your hours!_

Despite his internal grumblings, the ringtone is one for people he doesn't know. If it's not Takeda, then it might be somebody he'd want to talk to. Letting out a sigh and rubbing one arm to assuage the bruises from his kobujutsu session, he picks it up and answers the phone function. "Arakawa Kenji."

"Misaki Ryou. In some senses I'm your predecessor."

Kenji blinks, then holds out his pocket tablet to look at it. Nothing looks unusual, besides the words coming through it. Nerves still frayed from Astrid's stupid stunt on Friday, getting into a fight at the cooking school on Saturday and his parole officer harassing him the rest of the day until he finally started going back to the martial art studio . . . his week was a long sequence of aggravations piling up. Kenji can feel his blood pressure rising. All of that, then the eighteen-hour job yesterday, and now it's continuing today? Fighting to keep his temper under control, he snaps, "Is this some sort of a prank?"

"Ah," the voice on the other end of the line states. "I thought they'd explained a few things to you before Pi's stunt." A moment of silence passes, but Kenji can hear the breathing of somebody who is wrestling with distaste. "I was Haseo."

Kenji freezes, unable to decide what this means. He hadn't been able to go back to The World. Going on two weeks, and without that outlet for aggression and simple social contact, Kenji knew that his temper was unraveling . . . his life feeling like it's closing in. He wants to go back, desperately, but after Astrid's little fire storm and the looks he saw on his friends' faces, he can't even go past the log-in screen. Fingers pressing into his pocket tablet with an ominous creak, Kenji goes through a long breath, noticing the patience Ryou is giving him to finish it. "That door isn't open to me anymore."

A moment passes as Ryou collects his thoughts, then he begins simply. "You may want to sit down. I want to ask you to do something, but first I have quite a few things you need to know . . ."

…

"Hello!" the human PC waves, voice just barely below shouting. Despite the din of player activity in the crowded player marketplace of Breg Epona, the volume would normally be unnecessary given the selective filtering of the chat feature and the GUI interface. The failure of these to immediately get the rotund beastman's attention only rankles the Partizan named Karl. The long-haired PC of indeterminate youth puts his hands on his hips, the black of his faintly tunic-like garb standing out from the generally bright character designs of the crowds around him. "You were supposed to be ready for my latest shipment!"

"I'm sorry," Gaspard bows sheepishly in the shop stall. "I've been kinda distracted. Running Canard's shop was my favorite part of the game for so long. Negotiating and the whole exchange used to be so exciting, but the past week I've been so concerned about Haseo that I can't really focus." The beastman deflates with a sigh and his fellow Canard guildmate rolls his eyes.

"Listen, I know you're the senior guild . . . person, but neither of us can do anything if he doesn't log back in." Karl raises his hands to emphasize his point. "For right now, here's the latest from my inventory. The last wanna-be-arena-champions at least picked an interesting area."

Gaspard selects five of the eight items, sending the remainder back. He tries to smile at the fact that Karl's mild gesture and the shoulderless design makes it look like he's reaching out in prayer, but the observation that used to draw a chuckle now barely makes his mouth quirk in the real world. "Well, you were never that interested in the arena." Gaspard sighs again. "I'm sorry, I just keep coming back to Friday. I was so shocked that I think Haseo thought I was mad, and when Kaede took off he must've thought he was surrounded by people who hated him."

"Yeah," Karl says dismissively. A modestly new player and only a couple weeks in the guild Canard, all of this politics between older players is something he doesn't even know enough to speculate on despite being on enough to be an admitted online addict. "I'll bring the kid on a tour if he comes back."

…

Blue rings fall around a new player in Mac Anu, and the moderately tall beastman PC stretches in time with his human player working kinks out of his neck. The kitsune with blue-streaked fur gives a brief shudder that jostles his twin tails. Without even paying attention to main view he follows the mini map to the NPC shops, quickly exhausting his starting funds.

An hour later, he returns to the Chaos Gate and looks over the stream of players coming and going, looking for a green-garbed one in particular. His attention wanders as he takes in the intricate detail of the room around him, this being his first time actually visiting Mac Anu. The sunken area around the Chaos Gate actually looks like it has real, flowing water, and if he didn't know better he'd almost think he could smell the odor of hard water flowing through old stonework.

One girl, a skinny, human-type PC wearing a large purple hat with four rubies in the corners, notices his curious examination of the area and steps forward. "Hi. Me and my partner noticed that it looks like you're new. If you'd like, we'd be honored to show you around."

…

Author's Notes: Kobujutsu, also known as Kobudou, translates roughly to "old way of martial arts" and is much more firmly steeped in the practical aspects of martial arts. In other words, its focus is much more rigidly on the combat aspects, and not on the warm and fuzzies of "philosophical" martial arts practiced by some today. Unlike many modern forms, it lacks the emphasis on one set of stances or weapons (or lack thereof), utilizing a wide variety of movements and weapons of choice. I figured it would be the only one that Kenji wouldn't dismiss out of hand. I couldn't think of a convenient way to put it in English, but Japanese has an extensive enough lexicon that his disdain for philosophy would be obvious if this story was in that language. Whether it would be clear that he's just like anybody else who disdains something he's never tried I'm not as sure of, but cest la vi.

For those unfamiliar with the terms, "senpai" means roughly "mentor" but is also used to refer to any senior position, such as a high school freshman calling a junior Senpai. "Kouhai" refers to a junior.

_The Far Side of the Steep Mountains_ isn't a unique reference to Japanese art, but it refers more specifically here to the opening theme to .Hack/GU Volume 2. It just happens to be my favorite opening of the trilogy, though with Fukuda Chikayo's compositions in the games it's hard to pick a favourite.

Update 18 September: The conversation between Haseo and Kuhn has been expanded. My original plan was to get into the true reason for Haseo's standing out later, but the story decided it wanted to get moving in a different direction and I never realized that I hadn't put in that rather critical piece of information until a friend asked me about it.


	13. Fights a Million Foes

Foreword: Chapter 12 has been updated with an expanded conversation between Haseo (the real one) and Kuhn. If you've been following this story for a while, you might want to go back and brush up on that scene before continuing on. Thanks for the reads and especially the feedback.

**Second Shot**

Chapter 13:

. . . Fights a Million Foes

Warp-in rings fade away from the trio of PCs and the twin-tailed kitsune character straightens his maroon, robe-style sleeves before looking over his would-be compatriots. Asta doesn't look like much more than a thin-as-a-rail girl, her purple hat likely heavier than she is, but without being able to scan her character he doesn't have any idea what her class or level is. Her partner, Iyoten, appears more average. Another human-type PC, he wears casual-fitting black clothing and has white hair that covers the upper half of his face.

The darkness of Delta server's Submissive Tragedy's 1000 Oaks makes it difficult to pick out anything in the distance, but he thinks he sees a dark player with slim white clothing dash behind a hill before Asta strides out like a good little guide. She turns around with a smile reminiscent of a low-paid Japanese announcer desperate to keep her job in front of a bunch of tourists, then proceeds to explain the basics of the game.

The beastman-type PC, Reynart Azu, follows the trio in a walkthrough that has more than a few shades of being rehearsed or practiced several times. Still, he's unfamiliar with the dancer class and accepts a fixed agenda for short-term gain. Reynart thinks he spots another person moving around the beast temple, but with his low level and the scant abilities unlocked so far he can't see anybody outside his own party. Shrugging it off as unimportant, he follows Iyoten and Asta inside the temple.

The twin fans inside the temple treasure look laughably weak compared to the equipment he's used to using, but he reminds himself that it's better than what he started with. When he turns around, both human PCs have their weapons drawn.

The fact that his half-lidded stare doesn't even blink makes them falter a moment. Asta steps forward, a gargantuan greatsword in her hands with toothed wheels built into both sides. "You don't seem to realize the trouble you're in, little cub."

Reynart crosses his arms a moment in thought, then uncrosses them and looks her straight in the eye. "You two aren't very smart noob scummers. Didn't either of you consider the fact that your hits learned how to switch the camera out of first-person mode to watch you leering behind my back for the past ten minutes?"

Iyoten takes one long step forward, snapping up a blade like the bastard child of an overly-styled European rapier and a Japanese katana. His eyes remain hidden, but the lips alone are enough to display his distaste in a grimace. "Look at the pot calling the kettle black. You just lost your one slim chance of running away."

Reynart smirks along his player behind the controls, though the gesture is faintly harder to make out with his canine snout. "Oh really? I see you're not up on your Japanese folklore. Kitsune are notoriously hard to pin down. You may notice that I can see you both brandishing your swords and I'm still not worried."

Now Asta scoffs, resting her angular, oversized greatsword on her shoulder. "You're not a physical fighter class. You're not even a pure class, you're just an Adept Rogue. What could you possibly do to us? I know you didn't miss the fact that we one-shot every enemy on this level."

"There are more ways to handle looser PKers than fighting you toe-to-toe on your own terms," he answers with a clear smirk this time. "You must be used to idiots who haven't even figured out the interface yet. Remember that you asked me to invite you two? Party leader. I know your elemental resistance is nonexistent."

Iyoten and Asta share a long glance between each other before they look back at Reynart. The "players have left the party" popup is hardly necessary before they heft their weapons back into combat poses that only make the kitsune chuckle. Iyoten takes a step closer, blade now reaching all the way to the beastman's neck. "I'll admit, I'm impressed at how much a noob like you has figured out. Especially for how much you're missing. Really? What could you possibly do?"

Reynart only smiles before holding out one hand, fan gripped loosely. "Ani Zot." Lacking the spell proper, he unleashes the item that triggers essentially the same effect, and a pool of dark roars open, throwing Iyoten up and away on the expansive pedestal space.

Asta laughs cheerily at her compatriot as he pulls himself up. The damage was negligible, but it's enough for her to take notice. "I guess this isn't going to be as boring as the other noobs. Most are falling over themselves scrambling away and begging for mercy." An almost imperceptible click, and the toothed wheels in her sword begin rotating, sparks spitting out. "Not that you'll get any."

Reynart scoffs like a man who's just been told the world is hollow. _They've never PKed a man who's been in a _real_ street fight_. "Really? You've been PKing for how long and that's the best line you can come up with?"

Asta's eyes narrow, but then she starts striding towards him. "You've got quite a mouth on you. Pity you're still not worth the SP that an arte would take to cut it off."

She comes within swinging range and brings down her greatsword in a chop that could have split steel plates. Having dodged hundreds of pipes and other similarly clumsily-wielded weapons in his youth, he sidesteps only enough to let the massive blade crash into the stone beside him, coming so close he can feel the wind and sparks in its passing. As soon as it connects with the floor, he surges forward, bringing up both of his fans in a rising cross that slashes across her face.

With the massive level and equipment difference, the attack doesn't even deal damage, but the surprise that he would try something so direct at all still causes her to take a step back. Gritting her teeth with a snarl that sounds more like a banshee than human, Asta hoists her sword and powers a wide chop. Reynart drops into splits, leaning back and letting the sword pass over him before he nimbly springs back to his feet.

_I'm glad that's easier in the game than it would be in real life_, he internally notes before letting loose an earth item spell on the Edge Punisher and takes off towards the door. Even if Iyoten wasn't in his path, he knows he'd never escape, but taunting them is too fun to pass up and keeping moving is the only thing that will keep him alive against players well over a hundred levels above him.

Iyoten, taking his much more nimble blade in hand, makes a far faster horizontal swing aiming to chop through the kitsune's neck. Reynart dives into a roll under it, but before he can gain any real distance, his swordsman opponent chops his blade through Reynart's path towards the door. Dodging to one side, he narrowly parries the follow-up slice, then dodges the next by a hairsbreadth.

"Ani Zot!"

The dark spell item that slams into Iyoten gives Reynart enough time to snicker and dodge back out of his enemy's reach even despite the artificial sluggishness from his low agility stat. Asta doesn't give him any time to throw out another taunt, powering a diagonal chop that sends chips of stone flying but still doesn't quite connect with the nimble kitsune.

She hauls her sword out of the stone, angling it to try to make her rising sweep pass through the twin-tailed beastman. Reynart rolls out of the way, only to have to reverse his dodge immediately to avoid Iyoten's slash. It's rather obviously a move to herd him, but given that even a grazing blow from these players would instantly kill him he has no choice but to let himself be directed right back to Asta.

The girl first chops high, then low, each time seeing Reynart narrowly dodge the path of the blade. However, both of them can see that she's coming closer each time. She's about to make a faster slice when the doors open and a new player strides in.

"Hey, do you guys how to make the Sign here do anything?" the moderately dark-skinned female in white asks, trailing off at the rather obvious situation in front of her.

Asta barks out, "Back off, gaijin, this one's ours!"

The blond-haired PC brushes her bangs away from her right eye, a rather pointless gesture with the bandage passing over it. Her visible eye narrows and the lightly-armored woman takes a single, defiant stride straight towards the PKer. "You did _not_ just call me a foreigner."

"I think she did," Iyoten remarks with a confident swagger towards her. "So why don't you go get lost—"

The white-clad player surges into a Razor's Edge, sending the black-garbed swordsman crashing backwards. He doesn't hesitate to spring up, powering a slash that the swordswoman blocks with her own straight-edged blade. The two push against each other, blade to blade, neither making ground, before she snarls, "Don't pass me off or you'll find out why they called me Maniac Helluger."

Iyoten's eyes aren't visible, but the drop of his jaw is enough to imply the wide-eyed shock of his player. The distraction may be cheap, but Helluger is still angry from being called gaijin and as soon as her resistance lightens up she brings back her sword and begins to slash into the PKer.

Seeing the trouble her compatriot is having, Asta finally abandons Reynart in order to rush at Helluger's back. The still ajar doors beckon the woefully underleveled player, but he doesn't give them more than a glance. He's not going to just sit back and let these two scum gang up on another player like they were prepared to do against him. Almost out of attack items, he still throws out a Light Arrow.

The brief lance of gold and silver energy slams draws peripheral notice from Iyoten and Helluger, still focusing on each other. Asta however is enraged, and finally casts off her reservation against using skills on lowly prey. Armor Pierce is wholly overkill, applying four nines of damage on its first impact, but Asta doesn't have time to smirk. Shortly after her feet return to the ground, hinges creak and a new PC strides into the open doors. Slightly shorter than the average player, her varying shades of light and modest green identify Saburou even before she casts Rip Maen to restore the kitsune. Asta snarls at the new entrant, brandishing her greatsword in threat. Saburou gives her an appraising glance with one raised eyebrow, then crosses her arms. She looks over each of the players present before stopping back at Reynart. "You're lucky I responded when you said you were heading to an area with a couple of thugs."

At this, Iyoten and Helluger pause in their clashing of blades to glance back over the others.

The kitsune uses a healing potion on himself, then shrugs, still responding mostly to Saburou. "It's a long story."

The short girl in the lime green dress shrugs, gives a brief glance indicating usage of the player scan function, then stops at Asta. "I'll tell you what I see: you came in trying to PK one level one player. He's still up and there are now two players who have been killing things stronger than noobs for most of our careers." She shares a stare-down with Asta for a few moments before slinging out her own greatsword, a weapon with a finish more like ceramic than metal and shaped more like a lengthened axe than a real-world sword. "I'd say your chances are better if you leave."

Asta's eyes narrow even further in a glare. Iyoten hovers indecisively for a moment, and finally Helluger makes the telling move. Bursting into a Disaster Sword, her last blow sends Iyoten to the ground in monochrome. Asta glances between the three players, then takes off running.

Helluger kneels down next to the fading image of Iyoten, then puts away her sword and holds up her hands with a smile at a window on her screen. "Hey, not too shabby." The dark-skinned, white-clad player puts away whatever item she found and looks back at the twin-tailed kitsune player. "Say, blue kitsune guy. Why didn't you take off when I appeared? You could've made it if you left when I came in."

Reynart tilts his head in a motion that somehow says 'why ever would I do that?' He straightens a moment later, tugging his robe-style sleeves. "I don't like abandoning people. Besides, you helped me, even if it wasn't entirely by choice." He pauses and looks carefully over the human-type PC.

Her skin tone reminds him of Bordeaux, though her height is closer to 'average' and her build much more slim and less imposing. She wears gold-edged pauldrons and the rather typically non-conservative white garb that exposes her midriff. She doesn't have headgear besides the cloth covering her right eye like a bandage. He remembers seeing her before. "Maniac Helluger . . . you used to be a Chaotic PKer."

Her posture remains confident, but her eye casts down for just a moment, like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. "I used to be. PKed whoever because I liked finding rare items and that was one of the easiest ways to do it," her voice quiets momentarily, "but my friends said it was changing me, and not in a good way."

Now she looks over the kitsune Macabre Dancer. His dark-maroon robe-styled tunic opens like a wide slash across his torso, and is shoulderless but continues with detached sleeves on his lower arms. It extends into a split skirt with a styling that looks more Scottish than Sengoku, with close-fitting black leggings that stop just above his knees and somehow give an impression of an impoverished beastman. The canine feet lack shoes, which doesn't surprise her. Looking back up to his sapphire-blue eyes, Helluger speaks up again. "I'll say this much: you know how to hold up in a fight."

Saburou gives a half-smile and puts away her greatsword, reaching one hand towards Reynart. "It looks like everything's okay here, so if you don't mind, I'll head out. Here's the key to Canard, make sure to stop by Gaspard soon."

She promptly turns around and strides out, but pauses at the doorway. "And you better tell me next time you go to Fomoraig." She gives a thumbs up with a smirk. "I'm not getting left out of an adventure again."

Reynart doesn't even have a fraction of a second to respond when a member address pops up on his screen. Helluger is doing a good job of excitedly filling the space behind the pop-up. "You've got access to the waterways? Oh, man, those must be awesome! I heard there's sweet loot there!"

"Whoa!" Reynart holds up his hands in warning, fans still out. "I only had access there on my old . . . account . . . which I'm . . . not using anymore." His ears droop and he snaps the fans shut, flicking them into his sleeves.

"You didn't get account banned, did you?"

"What?!" Reynart yelps with a momentary angry tone before fisting his furred hands and making himself hear the question for what it was. "No, I just . . . it was kinda from a friend who didn't play anymore, but it's not right to ride on another's coattails, so here I am with a fresh account. I'll have to earn my way back up, but everything will be . . . mine."

Helluger looks over him for a few moments, and Reynart begins to fidget under the scrutiny before she leans back into a more relaxed posture. After cracking a smile, she says, "You know what? Keep my member address. Send a text if you come across anything interesting." She scans his character and he's pretty sure she pauses at his status stub. "Just . . . do a little leveling up before you send an invite."

…

Author's Note: Now that I've fixed the rather important detail of why Haseo's not around. To be honest I was dallying with whether I wanted to pick the most likely relationship he'd pick or whether I wanted to dance around the girl so the audience could continue to imagine their own. It took a while and a direct question from a friend before I finally settled with "I'm the author, so I'll just pick the girl who seems most likely" and get a move on.

Don't forget to leave a review.


	14. A Path of His Own

**Second Shot**

Chapter 14:

A Path of His Own

Screens suffuse the interior of the Serpent of Lore. Yata stands busily pouring through old recordings of replicating data fragments. At one side and just down the steps works a bright aqua-haired PC in rosewood-red pontifical vestments minus headware. A shout sounds and static breaks out across his screen.

A warlock throws a light spell at the fractured beast temple treasure chest, now fountaining with what at first appears to be sparks but soon start taking on a more coherent shape like mosquitos without wings.

…

Padded feet scuff almost silently over the stone, and black boots stride behind with the _pok . . . pok_ of somebody trying to sneak in heavy armor. The sleipnir startles and takes off running, and the twin-tailed fox drops his hands and looks up into the sky with an exaggerated sigh. Karl chuckles and shrugs, "Sorry, I only have heavy armor proficiency. There's just too many other things to spend quest points on than equipment expansions."

Reynart rolls his eyes. "And I've only got light proficiency, but I'm just leaving mine in inventory so it doesn't scare anything away."

Karl crosses his arms nonchalantly. "You sure take risks for a new—"

"Do _not_ call me a noob or I will _find_ ways to hurt you," Reynart bares his teeth as he warns the black-trimmed-gold-clad partisan. He turns around, his twin tails twitching like a predator on the hunt, and pads quietly to the post marking the end of a bridge to the main island. The sleipnir is meandering across the middle. "It's taunting me."

"Really?" Karl queries casually, lifting one arm as if holding up an idea. "I'll taunt you. Then it won't seem so unfair that an inanimate program is getting the best of you."

Reynart growls, the fur on his twin tails standing on end in threat. It only makes Karl chuckle more. Saburou shakes her head in an amused manner and her eyes take on that unfocused look of somebody looking through a menu. "I'll be back in just a minute, I need to drop off some items."

The kitsune waves her away, and a squeak draws the beastman's attention just in time for him to look down and see sleipnir scurry around him and off onto the small hilly island he just came from. He starts to growl and looks up at what disrupted his hunt. A skinny girl in a black dress, with a wide black hat. She looks very familiar from videos he saw while looking up Haseo. "Shino? What are you doing here?"

The girl pauses, a flicker of surprise passing over her before she returns to a mask of cool calm. She clasps her hands behind her back and leans, looking over him. She looks like she's carefully formulating what to say when Saburou jogs back from the teleport she was just using to offload her inventory. The girl in green looks at the girl in black and crosses her arms, her gaze suspicious at the least. "What are you doing here?"

Shino smiles, though the expression seems either mocking or morose and her eyes remain still as ice. "As leader of the Twilight Brigade, it remains my responsibility to spearhead the search for the Key of the Twilight," the girl in black finishes sedately, as if a teacher explaining something to a class a second time.

Reynart recalls Tabby mentioning the Twilight Brigade quite a bit. It was all in the past tense, and with the number of times she avoided eye contact when mentioning it, something must have happened. The kitsune feels the fur on his tails start to stand on end in response to his sympathetic anger.

_Static buzzes through the screen and a pulse like a heartbeat but as powerful as a factory machine rumbles_.

Reynart looks Shino dead in the eye. "The Twilight Brigade was disbanded."

Now the relatively unflappable Shino takes a step back, her eyes widening minutely at the strong statement. Her mental focus disrupted, she looks down for a moment to collect herself and finally asks, "How do you know?"

Saburou pulls her hard gaze off Shino and glances to Reynart before turning her unimpressed look back on the black-clad girl. "Haseo said all that needs to be said."

"_Don't_ call me that, I don't use that account anymore," Reynart snaps.

The change over Shino is nearly instantaneous. Her posture becomes more demure, and her expression softens. She even reaches one hand hesitantly out towards Reynart. "Haseo? Isn't finding Ovan important to you too? If I can find the key that makes wishes—"

"Nothing that grants wishes is real," Reynart snaps. Hundreds of wishes didn't bring his mother home from the hospital, and wishes didn't see his father in the crowd as he walked through the final ceremony at high school when everybody _else's_ father got to proudly clap at their sons' graduation. Hearing his controller strain, Kenji grits his teeth and sets it down to give himself a few seconds to calm.

Not noticing Reynart's teeth are bared, Kenji snaps at his teammates, "Forget that stupid hunt, let's grab the temple treasure and leave."

…

Teleport rings fade away from a beastman and two humans warping in to Dol Donna. Kenji wastes no time uninviting his teammates from his party before stomping off to the town. He isn't pleased to see Saburou interpose herself between him and the gate into the market square. He growls, doing a good job of looking threatening but failing to cause the experienced player to leave.

"Rey, I'm sorry about that. I know I didn't even know you until just before you dropped Haseo as a character, but it just slipped out."

"Why?!" Reynart snaps, pushing Saburou into the great wooden gates. He looks down at the shorter character, the twin tails of his PC shaking with his anger. "Am I that much like Haseo?"

A beat passes before Saburou draws herself up and turns a harder gaze to the looming kitsune. "No, Haseo was a lot more than angry – he had the fear of failure, determination to keep his friends safe, and he worked hard to deal with his rough edges. You're angry at everything even if you try to hide it, and I'm starting to think that you're fine with being as prickly as an urchin. You can't even get your cool when somebody wants to apologize. It's no wonder why Kaede and Gaspard—"

Reynart punches the lumber beside Saburou's head and lets out a bellowing roar. Saburou was half expecting the reflexive action, but wasn't ready for the red flash when his hand impacts and cracks the lumber or the momentary flicker of red in his eyes. A few seconds pass before he draws in a deep breath and withdraws his hand. Still not looking Saburou in the eye, he lets out, "I have reason to be what I am."

"Haseo had reason to be what he was," she points out, voice reasonably steady but her hands shaking slightly. "He still worked on it." She swallows, and a moment later rings descend around her character as she logs out.

Reynart slides down to his knees, hand still pressed against the cracked gate into Dol Donna's market square.

…

Earthen brown and sedate green swishes as Michelle strides down the cobblestone road from the fortified town of Fomoraig. The Lei Tribe player ignores the two players who spot her and dash towards town, reaching for the Chaos Gate and flicking into a random area to begin the hunt for a player worth the time to meet. A fairy orb does the job of scouting the area, and Michelle sets into a run to intercept any players on the way up the cloister dungeon. The monsters barely provide a speed bump, and it's not until the open room just before the boss monster that she finally spots another player.

She's a tall, dark-skinned human with just slightly too toned a build to call 'skinny'. Unlike most players who stick with an aesthetically pleasing symmetry, this one seems to have gone for a more irregular look. At first glance Michelle thinks that she's got a couple burn treatment strips, but on closer inspection it's more like bone is growing on a more ordinary clothing/armor appearance otherwise dominated in dark metal and violet. On one shoulder is either a skeletal hand or a white spider, Michelle isn't sure.

"Well, well, what have we here? Out looking for a brush with death?"

Michelle's eyes narrow. This brash sort of pride – or bluster – isn't all that surprising given the players that frequent the Zeta Server. The other player reaches to her waist and draws a long sword like shards of bone and rotting meat fused together. Michelle reaches to her shoulder and draws out her own weapon, a great spear like those carved from whale bone. The music changes and she allows himself a moment of pride as her nickname, Garden Michelle, springs up on the screen.

Bordeaux merely starts cackling and launches herself recklessly at the Chaotic PKer.


	15. Returner

**Second Shot**

Chapter 15:

Returner

Helluger leaps out of her combat roll with a spinning slash, depleting the final hit points of the boss monster. The giant plant-infested golem collapses against the wall and seems to disintegrate into the floor, leaving only some pointless materials. The white-clad adventurer sighs, sheathing her weapon. Passing through the next doors brings her to the cloister dungeon's beast temple treasure, and double-checks that her luck-boosting items are in place.

Rubbing her hands in anticipation, she opens the treasure chest and smiles at an unfamiliar sword in the loot pop-up. Her excitement is dimmed when she checks to discover that while its stats are high, it's not rated as a very rare weapon. Still, it's better than her old longsword, so she swaps attachments and re-equips before taking the teleport back to Breg Epona.

A crowd of players streams in from the lift. Helluger shoulders through them and takes the lift down to the market lane. The guild market area is crowded with players, though not many of the guild stalls are open. Her favorite, Kestrel, seems to be closed for today, so she aims for the first available guild stall.

"Welcome to Acorn, Canard's guild shop," the short, rather fat beastman in red clothing says. "We've got a wide selection of items from all over The World. Proceeds help support disadvantaged beginning and intermediate players."

At least he's polite and friendly, Helluger notes internally. She reaches out a hand and closes the sale of the month, noting that this must be a high-level guild to get access to shop perks like that. "I'm trying to offload, little man. You take scrolls, boots . . . and helms?"

Gaspard smiles and Helluger's player smiles behind her M2D, hoping that it doesn't translate onto her PC. A girl has an image to maintain. The beastman doesn't notice, or pretends not to. "Acorn is always open for business. If you want to donate something, I can give you shop coupons."

"Maybe one accessory," the former PKer finds herself saying before pausing. She was planning on selling everything, but now she'd already agreed to give one away. _'__Guess I'm committed now. This guy's good_. She throws one of the crown accessories she was planning on selling anyway and allows a minute of good-natured haggling before walking away with a sufficiently cleared inventory. She accidentally clicks on another menu tab and incidentally opens her friend list just as one of the statuses changes. The name is unfamiliar, but then she remembers that she only met Reynart Azu a week ago. _He probably hasn't leveled up much in that time, but maybe he's found something interesting_.

Helluger steps around a short, black-furred, rather cat-like beastman wearing a tank operator's helmet, and makes her way to the Chaos Gate.

…

Reynart circles around the Chaos Gate in Mac Anu so he isn't caught in the stream of players coming and going. He has a special destination in mind, one that he'd been to several times as Haseo but never as this character. It's not a legal game server, but if that's enough to stop him then he doesn't deserve to call himself a hacker. He brings up a few diagnostic and code windows, selects the Chaos Gate, and sets to work.

His lack of familiarity with network encryption is something that slows him down immediately. Cracking passwords and file protection is easy enough, but those are their own systems. Network security is a nest of interlinked systems, and sometimes messing up with one sets off a chain reaction that can close off the others or worse. It was what ended up catching him computer cracking after he graduated from Kyoto. Taking a deep breath to center himself and filter out extraneous noise, the blue kitsune launches himself into the Chaos Gate system to force his way into Netslum.

Three minutes later, and the blue rings descend around his PC.

…

The rickety bridge extends out between the buildings, and the mournful howl of the wind moans through the dilapidated urban area. Reynart is just about to dash across the span when a sigh comes from behind him. He turns around to the space that looks like somebody tried to decorate by merging an ordinary office break room and the desert city from Stargate. Mellow Grunty stands between a glass coffee table and a burlap-like cushion.

It turns around with the same awkward arms-out motion he expected from other grunties, but not the one that outran him in his last chase through Netslum. It walks out through the same narrow door he originally entered from, and Reynart follows it. He senses that his computer skips, and instead of the twisted mass of urban hovels that he journeyed through, he strides through the yawning doorway of an industrial elevator. Mellow Grunty crosses the post-modern-looking steel-and-ceramic bridge, and comes to a stop at a steel door like the opening to a building-sized safe.

A dark corridor lit only by the weak luminescence of a channel in the middle of the walkway opens up into a familiar circular room, in the center of which is that same copper-statue-thing he noticed last time. Zelkova, standing patiently in front of it, tilts his head in a very child-like manner and smiles. "Welcome back, blue kitsune."

Reynart gives a deep, respectful bow, remaining low as he asks, "I need your help."

…

Several days later, Helluger and Reynart fade back into Dol Donna, and the dark-skinned woman stretches with a yawn. "I hope you have an interesting job extension, because you seriously need better than the weakling spells you've got. Hell, I'll even buy you a book."

Reynart sighs and presses the back of his hand over his forehead melodramatically, but the swishing of his tails betray genuine aggravation. "Look, I had no idea that axe was going to one-shot me that many times or I'd have stood at the boss battle's periphery and thrown stat-boosting potions at you. Now let's not rehash the fact that I'm almost two hundred levels below you and go grab something at the market square to make up for it."

They agree on a fire spell and he activates it before they proceed to offload loot. On their way around the player guild stalls, the kitsune PC spots a familiar short girl in green at Canard's guild shop. "Saburou," he greets with a nod that he hopes is both polite and apologetic. The look of fear in her eyes last time is something that did not escape his attention, it just took a while to sink in. The flinch when she sees him is perfectly clear this time. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry. I'm . . . not entirely sure what came over me. I've always had a problem with my temper, but since starting this game it's like . . ."

Kenji pauses. Did it even make sense to say that he had a feeling that something was egging him on? Maybe even stalking him? He shakes his head, Reynart's movements following the gesture and make it easier to step back into the conversation. "Anyway, I've had enough time trying to do things solo. I can't do it alone." He pauses to take a deep breath, and Saburou crosses her arms in an attentive manner. "I need to make amends. I know what to do about Kaede-san, but you know Gaspard better . . ."


	16. Grudge

**Second Shot**

Chapter 16:

Grudge

Seisaku blinks as the swampy field fades in around him. His other two companions from the Medic Union teleport in on his right and left and their silence takes on an aura of trepidation. The Medic Union often ventured into grassy areas from the Delta Server all the way to forested areas on the Sigma Server, but it wasn't often that they came to the marshy fields hosted on the Lambda Server. It wasn't just the fact that only strong, experienced players tended to come here, Seisaku knew that the areas were damaged in the Third Network Crisis and fewer of them had been repaired than the busier fields accessible to lower-level players.

The round beastman in white lets out a breath and glances to his two similarly-styled companions before setting out on the Medic Union's area patrol. There aren't any obvious signs of players, but some areas have quick respawn rates and there are no few players who know to be stealthy on servers where PKers can have levels in the hundreds. The team has to collect chims to lower a cobbled-together gate onto a sunken castle wall, but Seisaku only pauses long enough to note that the castle is Western-style instead of wide and rectangular like most Japanese castles.

The sunken castle gives them passage over a slimy-looking bog and onto another stretch of peat where a dying tree hunches over from a corner. At first glance, Seisaku thinks that the tree is wrapped in Anelosimus spider web, but as he gets closer he realizes that the pattern is even more irregular than the spinnings of the colony arachnids. There's almost a crystalline quality to it, but before he can observe more, Osamu lopes forward without fear. "Hey, what's that?"

The player behind Seisaku resists the urge to slap his palm over his face – that would unseat his aged M2D. "Osamu, don't just rush out! We're the medic union, not TaN's adventurers."

Osamu's loping pace slows to a stop and he turns around doing a remarkably good cross between a petulant child and a begging puppy. "Awww, don't we get to have any fun? How often do we get to check out swamp grounds?"

Something inside stirs, and a heartbeat pulses out from the tree – at least Seisaku would swear that something of the sort happened, he was looking right at it. He even felt something, more like a tremor through his feet than the corny vibration from his controller. Was it a brief earthquake? No, they were never that brief, and the timing was too close to the game to be coincidence. Maybe his long evening hours were getting to him . . .

Another heartbeat pulses, more heard than felt this time, and there is the distinct motion of something possibly the size of a cow inside the wrapped tree. Seisaku activates a fairy orb, and quickly decides that the map looks too undisturbed for players to be active here. "Maybe we should get out of here . . ."

_Bu-dum_.

Osamu slowly turns, a light now starting to glow from within the tree and clearly indicating solid shapes – limbs – shifting inside the wrapped tree. One of the limbs presses outward, and the wrapping stretches just like spider silk, but the sound is more like sandpaper scraping wood. The wrapping reaches its maximum tension point and suddenly stops stretching. A half second like the slow cracking of glass sounds before large polygons suddenly shatter like crystal, shards flying. One of them cuts through Osamu's left arm before he turns to flee, and sparks sputtering from the collision as the arm itself turns into a charcoal-gray monotone.

Then the dark thing slides out and drops from the tree. Its shape is somewhat like a tick, enlarged to the length of two meters, with translucent hexagons running down its flanks. Unlike a real tick, it doesn't seem to have any mandibles, but its bulging limbs seem to be threatening enough. Despite the lack of clear eyes, Seisaku is certain that it looks straight at him for a moment of stillness before it lowers its head and breaks into a charge.

He doesn't have to call for the retreat before he shrieks and runs for the nearest teleporter.

…

Yata strides into the Serpent of Lore, the shuffling of three administrators hard at work echoing through the indeterminately large space. A warlock in a draping yukata that would be impractical in the real world pauses his recording, a large black sphere several meters wide in a forested area.

"Master Yata," a baritone voice floats from the holographic workstation closest to the pedestal terminal. Yata looks over to see Hachi, a cyan-haired cleric in pontifical vestments and one of his most dedicated workers since Pi's resignation. He continues working, a sense of clicking that _should_ be produced despite the silence in the virtual space with its holographic keyboards. "Seven new areas have been shut down since yesterday. No change on the last victim."

The orange-garbed PC nods. "Not unexpected. I'm sure the corp will want to move him into one of our hospitals. What about the candidate for the sixth epitaph?" The cleanup of the Third Network Crisis required months of work from Yata and what remained of Project GU, but after Haseo had his online party, most of the players were done. Many went their own separate ways and never returned to their characters. Losing Endrance, possibly the most skilled Epitaph User, was a blow to Yata's attempts to understand the evolution and purpose of the Avatars, but at least GU had narrowed down Macha's possible carrier to a mere handful of players.

"I haven't been able to find anything conclusive since my last observation report," Hachi responds, still typing away. "However, I believe that Rachel shows a number of the same traits that existed in Endrance. Her time spent on the world has also increased lately, making it easier to make observations." He pauses and looks up at Yata. "If I may ask, sir, why are we waiting for Reynart? Data streams clearly indicate he must still be an epitaph user—"

"Reynart has his own reasons for coming back to the world after ceasing to use Haseo." Yata answers, adjusting his PC's glasses. "His level of focus in building exploration and combat skills has to mean something, but despite my earlier invitation he has almost distinctly avoided coming here. He is definitely trying to prepare himself for something, but whether it is Awakening or something else I can not yet be certain."

He smiles as he looks back at Hachi's screen and notes the two party members with Rachel. _Sometimes things just come together_.

…

The elegantly stoneworked city of Mac Anu fades in around Kaede with the slight jump like a lagging computer catching up with its processes. It always happened when she transferred from the Netslum, and by now passing it off seems like second nature. She considers stopping by the market square, but fails to muster any enthusiasm about what she might find there. The World has been getting . . . tedious. Telling herself that she needs to watch over Zelkova has rung hollow since she opened up to Haseo – or whoever had been the new man behind the character. Zelkova is capable of watching himself, and she's not sure why she's disappointed at that.

She never really knew the old or 'real' Haseo, but the man who came back into The World had been something new and interesting. He listened with a patience that was refreshing after a long day of delivering lectures to university students who glanced at the clock as often as the whiteboards. The Haseo she grew to know would ask questions about the oddest of things, and for some reason she found herself looking forward to what unusual direction his curiosity would take their conversations. It took a few days for her anger at the deception to dissipate, but he never did outright claim to be the same Haseo, and he'd shared a few personal details as well.

Of course, there was also the matter of what Pi – no, it was Astrid now – said about him. Kaede went back to her later to clarify the details and learn that the new player was a hacker convicted in a large computer and identity theft case, and even served prison time. That was probably more unsettling than the realization that somebody new was behind Haseo. She'd never met anybody who'd even been to jail, the worst she ever knew was the dean of instruction who went to the city court to try to argue his parking tickets. She always thought that anybody sent to prison had to be . . . slimy, ruthless, and outwardly _wrong_. Not nice if slightly socially awkward, strangely insightful, and mildly humorous.

She hadn't seen him online since Astrid's revelation, but maybe one of his friends would know what he was doing. Silabus and Gaspard were both online . . .

…

Rachel flips her long ponytail over her shoulder and holds her longsword into the air in a pose worthy of postcards. "No beast of the darkness shall stand against the champions of mankind!" she proclaims. Her black and orange, midriff-baring dress ruffles in the windy mountain field, red armor pauldrons glinting in the area's setting sun lighting. Her green eyes gaze across the escarpment that previously contained the boss, now fading away. Karl hefts his halberd against his shoulder and smiles at the display.

Reynart Azu doesn't even look up from his crouch as he finishes hunting for materials from the fallen beast, then stands. "Quest complete, now let's head out."

Rachel stamps her foot, a vein distending as she breaks out of her thematic niche. "You have no sense of dramatics. Why play a _role-playing_ game if you're not going to role-play?" She closes her eyes and settles back into a pose, sword held out and angled down.

"You're a hopeless romantic with delusions of a theater audience," Reynart snaps. "This is a computer game, not the acting club," he adds with the same weary tone betraying a person who's been awake for too long.

Karl shakes his head. "I'm pretty sure he doesn't mean it. He was a nice guy the first time we met, and Gaspard doesn't speak highly of just anyone." The partisan in black doesn't notice Reynart cringe at that mention, and is about to put away his halberd when he notices three new players sprinting up the slope. "Hello, folks. I'm afraid we got to the monster first—"

"Plectra Bullet!"

With his hit points already low from the fight against the boss monster, the gunner's arte brings Karl to his knees. A speed-up spell flashes through the adventurers. Rachel braces behind her sword and blocks the jump-smash attack from a broadsword-wielding girl wearing a pink cap with four rubies in the corners. Rachel doesn't have time to try to counter attack, having to parry a slash from a slender, dark-clad swordsman with a look very similar to Karl except he holds a longsword just like her and has gray hair covering his eyes. He slashes again and she manages to fend off a couple of the blows before his body starts to glow with the activation of an arte.

"Zan Rom!"

A brief, rising cyclone springs up beneath the swordsman and interrupts his arte. A green sparkle rises as Reynart uses a healing item on Rachel, and then he steps in front of her. "I think you're going for the wrong target, Iyoten."

The PKer snarls. "You bastard! Do you have any idea what posting all of my stats on the public forums has done to my reputation?"

"A little less than this ambush is doing to my opinion of your intelligence?" Reynart ripostes. He points his tessen straight at the swordsman, gaze steady as stone. "There's too much to do in this game to make it entirely about attacking other players. I know there's PKKers who level combat skills to fight fire with fire, but I've never been a fan of playing other peoples' games by their rules when I've got better methods."

Iyoten powers a slash down at the kitsune who neatly sidesteps and leans just enough to avoid the attack. The PKer makes a low reverse-swing that Reynart hops over, and then tries another rising slash. Too close to completely evade, Reynart leans and uses his tessen to parry the blow just over his head. Reynart considers mentioning that dancers are one of two classes with innate evasion bonuses, then decides to let the PKer figure it out. Kenji glances up at the GUI to confirm that his SP is still depleted – his compatriots went through hit points and energy relatively evenly, but being a dancer meant he stood back doing more healing and status effects through the boss fight his party just finished.

Iyoten looks like he's fresh and ready to fight, and still over a hundred levels over the kitsune.

Reynart funneled everything he could into training agility, but that's still not enough to cover the level gap and it's only a matter of time until his luck runs out. _Remember: don't play their game by their rules_, Shinichi's voice echoes in his head. But how else can he win this fight? No way can he back down, not without inevitably handing over his friends on a silver platter.

Reynart slips and Iyoten plants a powerful kick into the kitsune's gut, smashing through his hit points and sending him tumbling backwards. Rachel breaks away from Asta and casts Rip Maen, but instead of simply restoring the dancer to the fight, it draws the PKer's ire. "You just made a mistake. I guess taking you down isn't quite enough, I'll have to turn your friends into chop suey." Iyoten trips Rachel, and his predatory grin gleams as he lifts his longsword at the PC trying to scuttle back on the ground.

Reynart snaps to his feet with an echoing howl. His twin tails, puffed with anger, start to glow with lines as if a magic pen were drawing a strange pattern down their length, and his eyes glow with crimson. A tone like a tuning fork sounds. The entire area skips once, lag slamming into every connected computer, and static flares across screens. When it fades, blizzard-level winds have sprung up and the mountain is gone.

Iyoten's scream is the last sound before the gale-force winds suddenly cease, and static flashes across the screens again.

…

Author's Notes: Tessen are the reinforced "war fans" used in Japan and rather popular through the Warring States period because they were allowed where conventional weapons were not. I refer to them by their specific Japanese term "tessen" because "war fan" is an extremely crude translation that I think lacks the ability to distinguish the folding arc fans with a lot of other types, like the signaling fan that Takeda Shingen famously used to defend himself against Uesugi Kenshin.


	17. Oath

**Second Shot**

Chapter 17:

Oath

Zelkova checks Asta's computer activity and is relieved to see that it's been manually turned off. That means that all of the players caught are all right. The child-like PC crosses his arms and stares at the frozen image in the center screen, the image of Reynart Azu howling in rage into the digital sky, an epitaph pattern traced in blue, red, and maroon over the PC. "Now the real question: was it anger against Iyoten, or for his friends?"

…

A swirl of dust is drawn up in the wind as a small cyclone springs up under the goblin knight. Its guard thrown open, it makes an easy target for the chakram-wielding twin blade who makes a double downward chop that finishes it off. Klarinette stands, puts away her circular blades, and neatly brushes at her slim, light-blue dress. She turns around, the ball-tipped antennae sticking out of the PC's light blue hair bobbing with the motion as she nods solemnly to her teammate.

Reynart snaps his tessen shut and into his sleeves in one quick motion. He strides to the treasure chest on the mound, kicking it open to claim the last piece of the beast temple key. With most players he'd mention something about the mission plan or query what her plans are after the area mission, but Klarinette is quiet to an extreme. She also seems to have a good memory and intuitive grasp of the situation, so talking hasn't strictly been necessary and Kenji chooses to accept that. The two slip silently over the dusty fields of the arid, rocky area.

The beast temple rises up out of the sandstone like an edifice out of Petra. Having already cleared the canyon area, the stillness is undisturbed by the patrols of enemy monsters. Reynart keeps an eye out for irregular patterns in the distance anyway – he isn't sure how Iyoten found him in his last quest, but he doesn't seem like a hacker. Maybe he's got a good infobroker?

"Do you know what this is?"

Klarinette's question is soft and simple, but the fact that she spoke at all after nearly six minutes of silence makes Kenji startle in his seat. The temple rises before them like a monolith, and he shifts his main focus from his minimap to the sandstone edifice. The Watcher, part sunken around the entrance and part reaching out like a thing unsure whether to be an embedded statue or a monster reaching out, is still and dark.

However, just beneath the tail is a crack with a thin seepage of code. Now that he stops to look at it, the sandy courtyard in front of the temple looks off, the textures grainy and the polygons themselves shuffled as if smashed out of place by a giant hammer. And at the end of the region of area bugs, in what almost seems a wall cracked by impact, is a faintly crystalline spider web. The nearly beige off-white color blends in somewhat with the temple, but it's definitely there. And it almost looks like there's a body trapped inside.

"Klarinette? Get inside. Let's finish and get out of here as quickly as possible."

She nods and dashes to the door, minute clouds floating up like dust from her footsteps, and pushes open the gargantuan stone double doors. The motes of code lazily drifting from the crack suddenly pick up the pace, and a moment later the humanoid shape inside the web shifts. A beat passes before it reaches up with both arms and presses against the web.

Klarinette draws her weapons and backs carefully away. Reynart lowers in a wary crouch and the web-like covering shatters like fine crystal on a stone floor. What crawls out looks like a PC – a man, or at least what's left of a man with his body from the waist down apparently chopped off. Dust carries on the wind as all three take in the situation, the tribal-tattooed man locking onto the kitsune standing in front of him.

Then, at some unspoken signal, it bursts forward, its arms propelling it forward remarkably quickly even as shards of bone-white code fall from its wound. Reynart lets loose a wind spell. Instead of being blasted up and away like a normal-sized PC should be, the corpse-torso-thing is knocked a mere meter to one side. It zeroes back in on Reynart and reaches an arm to start scrabbling back after him. Kenji draws in a breath and feels a strange warmth – or maybe it's a tightness – in his chest. There's a strange sort of squirm in the sensation. An interruption distracts him when something tears open the sky above them.

The kitsune shields his eyes as he glances up at the passing sandstorm growing high in the sky. Kenji hardly has time to spot the skeletally-winged man descending before he slams into the ground, cracking several of the already pixilated polygons.

He stands ponderously, but there's a sense of undeniable power about the strange, stitched-together man with wings made of – wait, no, they're not really bones. They remind Kenji of the steel beams jutting out of the foundations of buildings under construction in downtown Kyoto. There's almost something wire-frame about them, but before he can observe more, the winged man in dark armor surges forward, lifting up a sword that begins to glow. Rings open up along its length and four panels composed of hexagons begin to unfold. He smashes the blade into the infected torso and a brief snarl of rage comes from it before multicolored beams of light lance out into the corpse, continuing into the corrupted ground.

Reynart covers his eyes from the burst of light, and by the time it fades the torso-corpse is gone, the sandstone looks restored to normal and the winged man is turning to face the two active PCs. The kitsune glances to Klarinette, who is gawking in shock. Her confusion makes him feel more secure in his own befuddled state, so he nods in thanks to the winged man. A deep, jagged breath escapes before he almost imperceptibly returns the gesture, and then the winged man flickers and explodes into a burst of blue fire and wind, and a familiar azure orb shoots back up into the sky.

…

Sunlight shines down between massive trees, glinting off brilliant golden armor. Piros pushes aside a branch from a cocoa tree and reaches up towards the crown of the two-meter tree for handful of ingredient items. Movement flickers through the canopy and the party's lead player, Natsume, notices the falling shadows just before the ambush strikes.

Orangutan-like creatures with bright orange fur slam into the ground, one directly landing on the third party member Nogmung, a blade brandier in a red coat. The other two primate monsters strike nearby Piros and Natsume, the shockwave of their landing knocking back the twinblade but not only flinching Piros. The partisan draws his drill-tipped lance while the others recover and draw their blades into guard poses.

Piros hops back a step to put his opponent at optimal range for his lance. He hasn't spent much time in the forest areas on the Sigma server, but these monsters look like a deformed version of the mutants from higher-level jungle areas. In fact, it almost looks like they've shed bald patches that contain stretches of hexagon clusters. So another hacker has been defacing the beautiful, meticulous work of The World's art department. _This travesty cannot be allowed to pass!_

Piros pauses a moment before surging forward to attack what he's sure is a hacked monster. He's sure his drill lance impacts in the first several thrusts, white shards like bones flying from the big-armed creature. When no sign of hit point damage appears on the GUI, Hiroshi Matsuyama purses his lips behind his M2D.

"These are bugged monsters! Fall back!" Nogmung shouts as he throws down the remains of his longsword, broken off midway down the blade and white motes of binary floating off from the sundered ends.

Piros the Third frowns and turns his full attention back to the bugged primate. He faced bugged monsters more fearsome than this when he followed Kite in the first version of The World, and he came to fend off Cubia when Zelkova's call came in the midst of the Third Network Crisis. Unwilling to simply retreat yet, he takes a step back and charges to throw a powerful thrust into the bugged monster. It throws its slightly-improperly-textured hand right back, and the two attacks collide with a shockwave of force. It blows back the monster, but Piros' drill-spear suddenly flickers as if all of its graphical texturing suddenly switched off, and a beat later the now-cyan weapon explodes into tiny little shards.

Nogmung is just fading within the blue teleport-ring effect as Piros reaches the escape platform.


	18. Offering

**Second Shot**

Chapter 18:

An Offering

Reynart nods obsequiously to Gaspard, not quite dipping low enough to make the gesture a proper bow, then strides past Saburou to the beast temple treasure. A tap with his foot is all it takes to open the chest, a rare longsword appearing in the loot window. Reynart turns around and nods again to his teammates. "Thanks, guys. I know I haven't been the best companion, even besides slowing you down in combat, but I'm trying."

Saburou shrugs, her lime-green dress shuffling in the twilight of the Shinto temple-like area. "Eh, even Haseo wasn't that great when he first started out, and at least you know how to apologize."

Gaspard grins, the tail on his short PC wagging. "Yeah. I'm sure that Kaede will be okay with whatever happened when you finally talk to her."

Reynart's ears droop and the kitsune PC forces himself not to stare at the floor. "I sure hope so." Kenji swallows to help re-center himself before looking back up at the warlock. "I guess there's nothing else to it now. Let's head back to town. You two can do whatever you need to and I'll . . . do what I need to."

Saburou nods simply and Gaspard gives an enthusiastic smile before he bounds to the teleporter. Reynart swallows his trepidation as Dol Donna fades in around him – he was known for a lot of things while he was a kid, especially anger getting the best of him, but never fear. After allowing his teammates a moment to shuffle inventory, Saburou sends the flash message to Kaede. Reynart sighs, wanting to have done it himself, but he hasn't seen her since Astrid's little 'you're a code cracker' episode back when he was still using Haseo, and he doesn't have her member address.

Saburou blinks, a small jerk of surprise that still catches Kenji's attention. She raises her hands to manipulate a window in her character's GUI. Kenji raises an eyebrow, forcing himself not to conjure up any disaster scenarios. "What's up?"

The edge punisher in green has already recovered by the time she closes the window. "Well, when I saw that she was marked busy I figured she'd just give me a time and say we'll meet at Canard's guild atHome later, but instead she sent a set of area keywords. You okay with popping over to Breg Epona?"

Kenji frowns under his M2D. "I don't have enough quest points. You'll have to play team leader and bring me there." Reynart folds his arms over his chest, eyes glistening in the cloudy morning light of the root town. "And we'll probably need to call a third or fourth member since I'm not going to be much help in combat."

Saburou nods and scratches at her scalp under her large green headdress for a moment. "Well, most of mine are busy. I could call Axanthic, you got anybody?"

Reynart flicks his menu over to his short friends list. Only two people are online, and he's in no mood to invite Rachel. She's not much stronger than he is anyway. "There's Karl. He might even be able to benefit from stomping around the Sigma server, he plays this game obsessively." He sends the invitation, then looks back up at his team's heavy hitter. "So what's the area?"

Saburou invites Reynart into the party and turns to the Chaos Gate. "Troubled Humbling Knife Edge."

…

Blue rings fade as the party of four warps into rolling grasslands, the normally green field tinged brown and black by the long, deep shadows of a setting sun sinking below the horizon. Reynart brings up the area map and is thankful that at least this area doesn't have a beast temple. That means that unless Karl and Saburou gun for all of the monsters, they probably won't have to spend too long fighting. Of course, the boss monster at the end is probably strong enough to one-shot his character, so he takes a moment to alchemize a couple extra energy potions before the party heads out.

Saburou, the team leader, only takes a moment to take in the area before leading the party to the towering hill to the east. "Okay, the plan is to chop two monster parties to fill the morale gauge, then we go for the boss."

Axanthic shrugs and looks at Reynart. "I'm game, but isn't this lowbie a little out of his league?"

Reynart's tails stand up and twitch angrily as he snarls at the swordsman in a white coat, "Don't write me off before you've seen me in action."

Karl rolls his eyes and reaches over his shoulder for his halberd. The partisan in black focuses on the two vase-like monsters lethargically tracing a circuit around the foot of the hill. "Maybe we should save the combat for the enemies, folks."

…

Sophora dodges through a narrow doorway and tries to stick to the shadows while still being as fast as possible. She scrambles through a hallway that looks like it is cut out of rock on one side, and reef on the other, with the bubble-roof undulating above her and the ocean stretching up above that. A tall, human PC wielding a sword like long bone shards fused together strides through the door, the faint ambient light glinting off her teeth as she smiles widely.

"Come out, little mouse," Bordeaux calls.

Sophora presses closer against the dark corner along the coral wall, but keeps moving at a run. She tenses one hand around her short sword, the other having been broken like a crystal vase when she tried to confront the rogue PC earlier. Another doorway opens and Sophora has to expose her position in order to dart out into the next room in the area, hoping that it connects to another hallway.

The room beyond is dominated by coral and stretches out in a wide circular space bordered by a rippling wall of ocean on one side, with one mechanical golem tromping around by the coral wall on the other side. Sophora glances for an escape and curses at the fact that there aren't any other paths from here. The coral wall next to the hallway is too close to the golem, so she takes the wide and open space by a wall of undulating seawater rising straight up to the ocean 'ceiling' above, hoping that she can use the motion to mask her attempt to sneak around the long way and slip past Bordeaux.

The dark-skinned human strides out of the hallway, her smile having faded a little. "There's no need to run. Come on out and PLAY!"

Sophora flinches and accidentally brushes against the vertical wall of ocean behind her. She spots the trap just in time to dodge out of the way of an ambush from fish-men that splash out of the water. Bordeaux spots the obvious motion and resumes pacing forward, her smile growing. One fish-man spots her and tries to advance. One slash is enough to send it sprawling, binary code streaming from the wound. Sophora tries to fend off the other fish-man, but finds herself at a disadvantage with only one of her normal two short swords. Bordeaux bisects it vertically and walks straight through as the two halves fall away.

The former Moon-Tree unit leader tries to scramble away, but Bordeaux is too close and she plunges her fetid blade straight into Sophora's stomach. The shorter PC gasps, the player behind collapsing off of her chair with tears streaming from the pain. Bordeaux has just enough time to pull out her longsword, slashing through the twin-blade's right arm, when the coral floor explodes behind her.

Chunks of the floor fly upwards like hexagons blasted out from an explosion, and the corrupt PC turns to see a tall, broad-chested man with a rather stitched-together appearance rising up like a demon out of the white abyss. She doesn't even bother trying to talk to the partially-armored man, instead kicking one of the fizzling fish-men at him. Azure Orca stomps an armored boot down over the half of a monster, causing it to spontaneously dissolve, and then draws his sword. By this point, Bordeaux has made it to the rusted golem and infected that before making a charge like a lancer into the wall. White shards blast out and she vanishes as the golem and other fish-man lumber towards the cobbled-together swordsman.

His sword glows blood-red as he swings through the corrupted creatures, wiping the spawned copy and threading deep into the server backups to purge their corrupted archives, but when Azure Orca looks back around the area he doesn't see a sign of Bordeaux or Sophora except scattered shards of code.

…

The lumbering boss monster roars and Reynart snaps into a guard posture, deflecting the status effect and most of the damage but still absorbing several hundred hit points of damage. The behemoth, easily over five meters tall, lunges at Saburou, missing the easily over-leveled PC. Axanthic leaps, digging his drill-tipped spear into the giant humanoid just beneath its shoulder blades. It flinches – not enough to fully go into a flail animation but enough to delay its attack, which Reynart Azu takes advantage of by blasting it with an air spell.

It hits and turns up the team's combo count, but only causes single-digit damage. Reynart bares his teeth, muzzle wrinkling in anger at the stubborn yet massive enemy. Then it lifts up its cannon-tipped arms and aims at the kitsune. Reynart throws himself into a sprint along the base of the cliff, but its two cannons swing on target before he can get out into the meadow. He snaps into a guard posture the instant he hears the thunderous sound of the boss firing, but even deflecting over half the damage doesn't make up for the level difference and he collapses at zero hit points, fading into monotone.

Axanthic pauses from a series of sword sweeps to wave callously at the kitsune. "No sleeping on the job, lowbie."

Kenji starts to growl, but Saburou pre-empts him by lightly chastising the partisan, "Give the kid a break, he's working on it." She then throws a Rip Maen to revive the dancer.

With the boss focusing on the other three, Reynart settles into the lotus posture to bolster his SP regeneration and recover some of the energy he lost by being knocked out. Axanthic shouts at him again, and the kitsune rolls his eyes before snapping up and casts Ap Corv on Saburou. _If that jerk wants a buff, he can shut up until I'm charged_. He's about to sit down to regenerate again when Karl dashes in front of him, and the boss decides to switch from the quick-moving partisan in black to the dancer standing still.

Kenji growls, mildly this time, and sprints off into the meadow, keeping his motion lateral to the boss to take advantage of its slightly slower movement. With the extra room, he manages to keep just ahead of it until his action gauge refills. He throws out an alchemized item at Karl, who bursts forward to land a flurry of blows into the boss monster. Lacking the energy to cast a spell on it, Reynart joins in. He doesn't cause any damage, but the combo counter scrolls high enough to cause black and purple rings to snap into existence. Karl gives a whoop and is the first player to smash forward into a Rengeki. Axanthic, on the opposite side of the monster, launches into a reflex skill as soon as Karl finishes, the GUI shining as the team breaks into a Chain Rengeki, and the drill-armed partisan chops through the boss as if it is an ordinary monster. Saburou adds the third blow to the Chain Rengeki, and at long last the ugly beast topples over.

Instead of rushing over to harvest materials from the defeated monster like he tends to, Reynart stops and looks over at the hill to the west. With the sun shining from behind it, the silhouette looks dark and slightly flattened, like something out of a dreary painting. _Kaede never appeared during the boss battle, maybe she's somewhere up there?_ "Hey, Saburou, I'm going to check up north."

The swordswoman in green glances over him for a moment, sheathes her greatsword, and nods simply. He clears the 'removed from party' popup window and trots north as the party heads south to hunt more monsters. A small trail snakes up the north side of the hill, and once ascended he finally spots the lone woman standing, looking out at the brilliant crimson and deep orange sunset. With the deep shadows of the sunset, she looks like an onyx sentinel, more a statue than a simple woman, but the traditional yukata and rope belt could belong to nobody else. A moment of doubt creeps in, but Kenji swallows it and strides forward.

"Have you ever stood at the edge of a cliff in your life, looked over your life, and for one moment seen everything in crystal clarity?"

Kenji walks closer, but stops a pace away from the swordswoman. "I know what you mean, I think." He glances at Kaede, still as marble. "A place where something happens to change everything, and now that it's all gone you can see everything that came before perfectly. But it doesn't matter, because what lies ahead is a raging tumult, as unpredictable and powerful as the Pacific." He reaches up to scratch at his head, his kitsune PC mimicking the action. "I think that's where my life has always been. Somewhere in that storm where I can't see out."

A few moments pass, but Kaede doesn't move a muscle. The silent stillness is slightly unnerving, and Kenji finds himself subconsciously reaching for his anger for lack of any other handle on the situation, but finds himself unable to push himself into feeling aggravated at her. Kaede is the one who brought him into this awkward, unique world.

Kenji takes a deep breath, and looks out over the area's perpetual sunset with her. At last, she speaks again, voice as precise as a poet. "I had been playing The World for a couple of years before Haseo and the Third Network Crisis. When it was all over, there was an online party in a reserved area. I thought I knew all of the important people and events that led up to the Third Network Crisis, but I had scarcely loaded the area before I had to give up that illusion. That was the first time I heard of Haseo's first sensei in the game – an infobroker by the name of Phyllo. I met Shino, who'd been turned into a Lost One and spurred Haseo to begin his quest many months before. She was already trying – tactfully, but strongly – to recruit people to re-form the Twilight Brigade and find Ovan. It was the first time I had even heard of Sakubo, the young boy had been a companion for a while and looked up to Haseo as a big brother."

Kaede pauses and looks down, her eyes close and for a moment he thinks he's looking on a statue of the goddess Lakshmi. She seems to struggle between a bitter smile and a mild frown for a moment before adding, "Can you claim to know a friend if you know nothing about the people in his life?"

Kenji turns to look at the sliver of a sun hovering above the horizon. He remembers standing in the crammed courtroom in the dingy neighborhood of Kyoto, glancing back at the crowd packed into the guest area of the room and seeing none of his friends. "I think . . . maybe you can't even always know your friends until they stand by you."

Kenji hesitantly takes one more step forward, coming alongside her and looking out in the same direction. He's tempted to look directly at her, but something causes him to hold back and he instead fixes his gaze west. Some time passes before he realizes that he's stalling. "I'm sorry—"

"I never knew Haseo, so I hardly have a right to be angry with you," she interjects with a forcefulness that reminds him of a person desperate to speak for fear of not being able to speak at all. Her head tilts faintly, like she considered moving but instead keeps her gaze fixed firmly to the west. She starts fidgeting with her hands.

Kenji does what he always prefers when things become awkward: go on the offensive. Although 'offensive' in this case was what he planned on doing before even coming to the area. He takes a step back and kneels next to Kaede, taking out the sword he found and presenting it to her like a samurai of old. "I met you by chance, and thanks to the work of another, but I still exploited his efforts and your trust by not speaking the truth. I never corrected the misconceptions you had – for a while I even directly pretended to be your Haseo. No longer."

Kaede slowly turns to the kneeling kitsune, and Kenji shivers as the wind in the game area blows in time with a gust of frigid January air slipping through the cracks of his creaky, 'government-approved' building. A few seconds pass under the ruby light of the setting sun, and then Kaede reaches out and takes the blade.


	19. Failure to Mix

**Second Shot**

Chapter 19:

Failure to Mix

Rachel smiles and makes a twirl, her divided orange dress almost sparkling in the ambient fire lighting the undercity area. She flourishes her longsword and declares, "Another agent of chaos vanquished!"

The aqua-haired girl PC next to her simply strides past the fading quest monsters. "Those weren't the last."

Rachel frowns at her party member, Klarinette. She's not actively castigating her intensively role-playing her character like her kitsune PC friend, but the passive-aggressive way that the quiet twin-blade player ignored her made it even more difficult to get into the theatrics. Really, what's the point of playing a role-playing game if you're not going to play a different kind of role? Rachel's player shakes her head, her PC miming the action. There's not even any cute guys to have fun with, she laments before straightening and following Klarinette.

She catches up without any trouble – most players default to full run, but either Klarinette has a low run speed or she has her preferences set to go into a light, easy-to-follow jog. They pass one of the three-meter-square steel doors set into the hewn rock, and Rachel slows down to observe. It's already open, which likely means it's a trap area, but it also reminds her very much of the battleship sets she and the other animators have been working on recently at the animation studio.

Klarinette doesn't even glance at it, apparently deciding that bypassing a trapped door is better than any treasure that could potentially be hidden behind it. Rachel sighs, but her sense of exploration is interrupted when a hunched, humanoid figure lurches into view from around a bend further down the underground tunnel. The movements have a curiously graceful, yet uncertain quality about them. It's almost like a puppet struggling with several strings cut, though at the same time there is an economy of motion.

As the figure gets closer, she can just make out that it's a human-type PC with dark clothes and a dark, wide hat. Starting halfway down the androgynous figure's right arm is a strange, white armor like bone – or the shell of a sea creature, with a color like a pearl. This armor becomes all-encompassing past the elbow, terminating in wicked, clawed fingers. A similar bone or pearlescent armor extends across the belly up to the PC's collarbone.

Klarinette draws her twin chakram. "Sophora. What are you doing here alone?"

Rachel halts in surprise. Klarinette made clear her preference for silence whenever possible a while ago. This was practically a soliloquy. The swordswoman in the orange dress looks up at the PC in dark clothing and bone-white armor. Sophora doesn't sound familiar, and the PC seeming to drag the shadows with her (or him). A moment passes and the stranger doesn't lift her eyes to meet Klarinette's steady gaze. Rachel looks back at the strange, clawed gauntlet-like right hand. Maybe it's a special item?

The movement occurs faster than the eye can follow, and suddenly she's down on the floor, winded, Klarinette exchanging a flurry of blows with Sophora's clawed hand. Rachel does a kip-up and draws her sword the instant she's on her feet. The chakram-wielder is parrying like a champion, but despite her combat prowess, she is still falling back against the wickedly fast claws that seem to pierce right through her armor. Her hit points are already down to fifty percent, and she actually looks like the blows are hurting her.

Rachel growls. Klarinette may not be a good conversationalist or a cute guy, but she's still a friend in The World and no strange bully is going to walk all over her. If she just lets Klarinette die, she'll leave and Rachel will be all alone. A sickly, unpleasantly warm feeling stirs in Rachel's chest, and a growl begins to emanate from her throat. The swordswoman charges for a good blow, then zips forward and powers a slash up through Sophora. The blow sparks against the bone-white armor wrapping around the nimble PC's and sends her flying to the wall.

Against all expectations, instead of crashing limply against the straight-hewn rock, Sophora flips in midair and meets the rock feet-first, springing off it and pushing off, straight at Klarinette. The chakram-wielder drops into a combat roll backwards to evade the clawed swipe, and Rachel presses into the attack. I may not be as high level as Klarinette, but when you take on two girls you're asking for a world of hurt.

Rachel puts both hands into her powerful vertical blows, but Sophora seems to either bat aside the blade or simply soak the damage. She must have high level stealth, too, because Rachel isn't even seeing damage numbers from her hits. The swordswoman rears back for a different stance, but Sophora surges forward and nails her with a kick to the gut, making Rachel stumble backwards. Behind her M2D, Hisakawa Aya jerks and coughs at the effective sucker-punch, glad that her chair was there to catch her.

Sophora wastes no time in returning the assault to the twin-blade, who barely has time to snap into a guard posture after using a potion. Sparks like flakes of bone or code fly as she desperately tries to fend off the claws at least ten centimeters long, and the seconds stretch into what feels like hours as Rachel tries to collect herself to help her friend. She comes back into battle just as the nimble, dark player tries to nail her with another snap-kick, but this time the swordswoman is prepared and parries with her blade, slicing along her shin and pushing forward to continue the cut through Sophora's stomach.

The cut scrapes without discernable damage, but for some reason the dark-clad PC in bone-white armor stops anyway. She takes one step back, both of the other girls taking up ready flanking positions, but then they look up at the roof of the underground tunnel at an orb of what looks like blue fire trapped inside a glass orb. It descends quickly towards Sophora, who spreads out her arms with an almost serene expression and lets herself fall backwards, plunging into and through the floor behind her with a flicker of polygons and a sputter of binary motes at the area of impact.

A beat passes as the girls look at the polygons, somehow swapped to a grassland texturing, before the orb explodes like a grenade. Rachel could swear she actually felt the pinpricks like a wash of heat pass over her skin before she picks herself up off the ground. A horrifying man like something out of her film history class Frankenstein stands before her, clothing a patchwork of red and orange. Short locks of bright cyan hair stick out of his cap like spikes, but he turns away from her before she can try to get a look at his eyes.

As creepy as the rest of him is, Rachel just shudders and scuttles back a couple steps, keeping her sword at the ready.

He looks at the corrupted polygons that Sophora sank through mere moments ago, and despite the silence, Rachel gets the strange empathetic sensation like a frustrated man glaring at a recurring problem. He steps back and points his right hand at the polygons, digital motes still floating up from them.

Rachel's jaw drops as she sees a ring like a beautiful bracelet glow into being around his wrist, pylons unfurling from it as a whining tone builds up for a second, and then a flash of white blasts out. Rachel reflexively covers her eyes, but the light is gone almost immediately. When she looks back at the scene, the cave is back to normal – even the lingering sense of pain and foreboding is gone, and she reconsiders whether the creepy boy is a monster. He straightens, and then azure flames spread over him like a bonfire catching. They quickly cover him, and then burst in a much less violent fashion than his entry, and the orb is back in place of the boy. It hovers for a moment before zipping into the wall and away from view.

Rachel looks at Klarinette, on her knees and still keeping a white-knuckled grip on her chakram. "I think we should go. I'm gonna check on the forums and see if anybody else has seen anything like this."

Reynart swallows, his twin foxtails twitching as he strains to keep his hands steady. The mix meter is nearly full, and if he can just finish this potion he should get enough experience to gain a level in alchemy—

The sound of breaking glass and an accompanying splatter of liquid on the cobblestone heralds another failure of what should have been a high-level potion. Kenji clenches his fists and lets out an angry growl of frustration. A howl of rage might have been more appropriate for a kitsune losing a full day's worth of work, but he can't quite muster up the energy to fully step into the role.

"Just not your day, huh?" Sandy offers consolingly. Kenji ignores the platitude, and the potion master of Canard crosses her arms, jostling her ankle-length purple hair. "C'mon, everybody suffers some setbacks in skill grinding. Your problem is that you're still getting used to not having massive access to money or materials." When Kenji refuses to drop the hostile cringe of his posture, she leans back and uncrosses her arms with a roll of her eyes. "Here, I'll give you some milkweed—"

"Forget it," Kenji snaps, unable to hold in his aggravation. When Kaede, Karl, and everybody else on his friend list was busy, he tried to chat with Gaspard at Canard's shop in Mac Anu, but a crowd that he claimed was regular business stood there, so the kitsune PC had to leave and find something else to do on his own. I don't like doing things alone, Kenji grouses, It's the same as not doing anything. "I'm going out to an area with an obstacle course. If Karl or Rachel come by, that's where I'll be."

Sandy sighs and Kenji brushes past the female PC in the gold dress. The kitsune's twin tails twitch as he strides out of Canard's atHome, heading straight for the teleport and up to Dol Donna's Chaos Gate. He reaches up to the gyroscoping construct, but hesitates. He's been to the obstacle course dozens of times since Silabus gave him the area, but he'd always been competing or cooperating with other people. Would other players be there?

Kenji's hand slides down and he looks down at the bottom of the GUI. Streams of other PCs jostle around him, and he sighs. I didn't mean to snap at you, Sandy. It's just been a long week at work. The off-duty cook shakes his head. It's too late to go back now. Look forward, not back, Shinichi always told him. Unfortunately, the only other thing he has in The World is his Avatar – something he knows is there but isn't coming . . . out. It's like a presence, hovering over him, watching from the distance but never coming close enough for him to get his hands around its throat.

He tisks and relaxes his fists. It's not like it's a police stakeout or anything, it shouldn't be such a mysterious thing. Maybe I should talk to one of the other epitaph users, he mulls. Unfortunately, he knows that not all of them are still playing. Haseo gave it up in order to keep his girlfriend out of The World and all of the eerie threats lurking inside it, and the next most famous one is Endrance, but nobody's seen him in almost a year.

A realization dawns on him, and Kenji almost punches himself for his stupidity. He met an epitaph user mere months after starting the game as Haseo! They even talked about Avatars. Kenji snaps into his friend list. While all of them are still marked as offline or busy, he knows that Kuhn tends to forget to change his status when he's on one of those patsy dates in The World – or when his girl of the day's dumped him. He quickly sets up a whisper channel.

"Hey, Kuhn, are you up? I need to talk to you about the Avatars."

Kuhn is on the whisper channel so fast it makes his head spin. "What happened? Are you all right? Are you in a populated place? We can head to an empty area—"

"Whoa," Kenji interrupts before Kuhn can trip all over himself. He even heard the poor journalist knock something over on his desk. "I'm . . . okay, I admit that it would be lying to say that everything's great, but I spotted another ping attempt from CC Corp this week and I think your chumps in Project G.U. are trying to peg me again. I don't know if they know something I don't, but I remember that you thought that Avatars and that awakening stuff was really important." Kenji pauses, noticing his kitsune PC's tails swishing in motions of anxious anticipation much like his own. "Could you spare a couple of minutes?"

A moment passes and Kenji is pretty sure that he hears a ding from another program on Kuhn's side before the veteran responds. "Yeah, Akemi wasn't interested and took off, so I've got time to kill. You want to meet in an area and do something while we're at it?"

Kenji finds himself shrugging despite the fact that Kuhn isn't actually there to see the gesture. "Yes, I've always been a fan of making the most of my time." An unwanted flash of shouting and an automated, barred door slamming in his face passes through his consciousness, and he feels himself jerk away reflexively. Now he's glad that Kuhn wasn't there to see him. Kenji shakes his head and tries to push those two years away, aware of the perspiration that's broken out over his forehead. "You never really know how long you have."

"That's deep, my friend," Kuhn responds with an upbeat, cavalier tone that somehow draws a smile from the hacker. For a moment Kenji wonders if he's able to perceive more than just the audio and auto-transcribed-text transmitted over the whisper channel. "I think there's a new monster hunt quest on the delta server. Meet me at the Chaos Gate in Mac Anu?"

Kenji nods before remembering that Kuhn can't see him, and winces. "Sure."

"…and that's why I put Silabus in charge and had to leave Canard. If I'd tried to fight it down, my Magus might've come up while I was adventuring with them. Gaspard might've ended up a coma victim just like Shino," Kuhn finishes, pausing to look into the well beside the path and see if there's a bonus item. Seeing nothing, he jogs briefly to catch back up with the kitsune striding down the covered pathways of the steam-works temple area.

Kenji gives the required nod for politeness sake, but he can tell that a tension from not really connecting with the story lingers. He rolls his shoulder to stretch a kink in his back, and stops at the locked chim door leading to the next room. "I get what you're saying, but that just . . . doesn't feel like me. I mean, it doesn't feel like something that's clawing to get out. It's powerful, I think I feel hints of that now and then, but . . . it's more like . . . have you ever dropped something into a muddy puddle at the side of the road? You know it's there, but even when you reach for it you can't quite seem to find it. It's not something that I'm wrestling to keep down, it's something that I can't seem to reach out and grasp."

"Just be careful about trying too hard to awaken. I was there when Haseo awakened with Skeith, and it was not a pretty picture. He got lucky the first time, but the next time he was in the arena battle against Alkaid and Skeith came out; she was hospitalized for a couple of days."

Kuhn's eyes take a distant quality, and for a moment he seems more like one of Kenji's learned professors at Kyoto University and less like the happy-go-lucky goof that he pretends to be. "Alkaid . . . that's the character that Chika used? His fiancée's character, right?" Kuhn nods, and Kenji shakes his head. "Man, I'll bet he's still beating himself up over that one, even if they weren't dating at the time."

Kuhn gives an ambiguous lift of one shoulder and continues looking out. "I never saw it myself, but I heard that Pi was as bad. She awakened midway through some kind of fight and the people she was with all went comatose. She never told Haseo, but some of them didn't come out of it until the end of the Third Network Crisis. One didn't at all – died of exposure before her landlord found her."

Kenji pauses midway through reaching out to the chim door, his eyes drifting down. Working on his temper is a lifelong process, and the compulsory 'therapy' he did during and after prison has helped, but he knows that he's gotten more than just himself in trouble with many of his fights. Shinichi and Akemi back in Kyoto, then the self-styled Haruman in his first dark year in Yamashina-ku. Even some of his bigger code-cracking exploits were because somebody ticked him off, not just because Shinichi wanted to know if he could get into a bank. I can't let it happen again.

After a deep breath, Kenji lets his arms slide down and he looks over at Kuhn, waiting in front of the door. "What I am is going to be something I carry with me the rest of my life. If it's not what I use to awaken my epitaph, what am I going to do? I told Haseo – Ryou – that I'd take care of things so his fiancée wouldn't get involved in The World again." A stirring swirls within him and in an impatient moment he raises a fist, stopping only centimeters from the chim door. Lowering the limb, he looks back at Kuhn. "What could happen, anyway?"

Kuhn's visage turns as cold as the bitterest winters in Hokkaido. "I can only tell you what I know. But if you want to see to what happened to Haseo, I know that Yata still has recordings in the Serpent of Lore." He swallows with difficulty, then draws his steam gun. He smiles, but the stiffness of the gesture is obvious. "Let's take care of this boss and get back to the quest hut."


	20. I'm Right Here

**Second Shot**

Chapter 20:

I'm Right Here

Kaede reaches up, and Kenji reaches down to help her scale the climbable surface of the broken wall leading to the next area in the castle ruins. He's about to trot off to the trap chest shaking in the corner when he hears Kaede yelp in a surprised and strained, yet amused manner. Kenji turns around to see the party leader, Kaede, under assault by a gaggle of chim assassins.

A few kicks later, and the pair of adventurers let out a laugh. Kaede keeps going for a few seconds, and Kenji finds himself pausing to savor the sound as a warm sensation like butterflies flit through his stomach. Laugher is a sound he knows was all too rare in his childhood and he's always liked making his friends laugh, but lately it seems like it's different when Kaede lets out that musical sound of amusement. It's light and genuine and so pleasant it almost makes the drafty flat he lives in feel warm, and as stressed as she's been today.

She catches him staring a moment later and diverts her gaze in her familiar, adorable manner. He almost thinks that he can see a blush spreading over her fair cheeks. A moment passes before she reaches up to press her fingers against her forehead. "Thank you for taking the time to help me on this quest, Ken-kun." She chuckles self-derisively. "And for listening to me talk about the university for two hours."

Kenji smiles. The familiar reference is just like what his friends called him in Kyoto, and it kindles a warm, tingling feeling that reminds him of all of the good times he had before his arrest. He blinks, forcefully shoving all of that aside. I'm with Kaede now, not alone again. "It's fine, I'm always ready to listen to a friend." He pauses to scratch his scalp, noting that his PC mimics the action. "I just can't believe that pipsqueak Fukushima is back-talking you because he thinks his father having an older degree than yours makes him smarter. People who can't leave their family's shadow are nothing but shadows themselves."

Kaede smiles in a strained, yet also relieved manner, glad to finally have some sympathy. Unfortunately, the tension around her eyes doesn't fade, so he steps close and reaches out one hand, unsure if he should reach around her or just reach out towards her. Kaede lets out a pained sigh and closes the short distance to lean against him. His arms reflexively close around her and she takes a deep breath.

Yoshi drops over the wall and lands on Kenji, who'd barely finished dropping down himself. Three people stand up, expecting the gang's computer expert to lose his cool and launch himself at Yoshi, but when the shorter, brown-haired youth gets to his feet first he reaches down to Kenji. A beat passes before Kenji reaches up for Yoshi to yank him up, and the two stumble into each other before Yoshi reaches his other arm out to draw in Akemi and shout in victory. The whole group joins into the odd group hug, a small victory in their series of break-ins against the latest business baron. Shinichi and the rest of the gang piles together into one giant group hug and the collective group laughs before the sound of scratching on the opposite side of the wall gives them the signal to scramble.

This is different, a feeling of comfort and belonging but somehow still so different than he's ever felt before. It's like being home, wrapped up in a warm cotton blanket. The wind outside his fourteenth-floor apartment building rattles the window and Reynart's ear flicks in time with Kenji's own annoyance at the distraction, and he chooses to simply tighten the embrace. The sound of Kaede's slow, steady breathing flows through his ears – he can almost swear he feels the warm exhale tickling the hairs on his neck, the feel of her weight pressed against him—

"Well, well. It's kumiho and sonnimga. What a shame to interrupt such a moment."

Kaede notices that Reynart's eyes look like they've been replaced with burning red lanterns as he mechanically opens his arms and pushes her to one side. Kenji turns to the sound of Iyoten's voice, and sees another two longswordsmen with the PKer in the black, almost trench-coat-like garb. Reynart's twin tails lift up and swish back and forth as he warns with a calm tone that raises the hairs on the back of Kaede's neck. "Don't make the mistake of threatening my friends."

Iyoten smirks, casually twirling the serrated longsword in his right hand. "Consider this a little bit of the payback I owe you for posting my stats on the public forums." He looks at the swordsman to his right, gesturing with his head towards Kaede, and the two lift their sabers and begin to advance.

"Walk. Away." Kenji bites out, the harshness of his voice and the obvious glow of his eyes making them hesitate.

Unfortunately, Iyoten takes his serrated longsword in both hands and begins to pace towards the two adventurers. The swordsmen resume and Kaede draws her blade. Kenji notices that it's the same as the one he gave her a week ago, and another chain around his inhibitions clatters to the metaphorical floor. A strange, hot, stirring feeling swirls in his chest, and an animalistic snarl floats out from his muzzle as his teeth bare.

In an effort to try to come at the situation from a flank Iyoten may not be ready for, Kaede asserts, "Reynart is beneath your level, and I fought you off last time you challenged me."

Before taking his eyes off the kitsune PC, the PKer grins. "Oh, I know. That's why I'm going to PK you first." He glances to the kitsune, a gleam momentarily shines where the PKer's eyes should be if they weren't covered by his hair. "It's rather fitting, isn't it? For you to watch helplessly as I chop down your girlfriend apart like a cow."

Kenji rumbles with a feral snarl, and Kaede's eyes narrow to slits, and what reluctance she had vanishes as she settles into a battle-ready crouch, longsword held high. The first PKer reaches Kenji and instead of drawing his tessen, he puts his arm strength into shoving the intimidated PKer away so he can focus on Kaede and Iyoten. His character's level isn't enough to actually knock his opponent away, forcing him to divert a fraction of his attention to actually dodging the first swing at his head.

Iyoten and his brown-vested fellow reach Kaede at roughly the same time, the goon swinging up at Kaede's head. The swordswoman in the red kimono nimbly bats aside the European-style saber, turning to narrowly parry aside the serrated sword that chops down at her from Iyoten, but fails to catch the follow-up reverse-sweep from the black-clad PKer. The saber-wielder scores a deep slice, but she manages to cast off the follow through before having to put her full strength and attention into deflecting Iyoten's double-handed chop. Kenji snaps out his fans and tries to run out to help her, but his swordsman chops and forces him back.

Bu-dum.

A hot, heavy sensation pulses inside Kenji as he sweeps around the swing from his own saber-wielder.

Her saber-wielder slashes at her side and she parries, then flows into a lightning-fast riposte, slashing into him and dealing low-triple-digit damage at the same time as Iyoten stabs into her, jerking the blade sideways out of her for heavy damage. Kenji backflips away from a swing at him and kicks his swordsman in the gut but doesn't manage to push him off. Kaede ducks the next horizontal swing and responds with a Sword Flash against Iyoten. The saberman surges at her immediately with Ogre Sword, and Iyoten mercilessly follows up with Razor's Edge, giving the saberman another opportunity to slash at Kaede's unprotected flank with a regular attack, sending her to the ground in a rough tumble.

Bu-dum.

Another sensation pulses in time with Kenji, like two heart beats coming into sync. Come on.

He parries another swing at him from his own opponent, who draws back but halts when Kenji mutters. The oddity of such a muted response to such a brute situation makes the hired PKer strain to listen . . .

"We're here . . ."

Bu-dum.

"Come on . . ."

Bu-dum.

"Let's do this . . ."

Lines race over Reynart's body and static flickers through the area like a sudden bank of fog rolling in. The ordinary players can't see anything, but the hireling standing next to Reynart could swear he hears the tone from a tuning fork as Kenji's hands curl back in towards himself like a man retracting an offering. He hunches over, his voice dipping as his epitaph pattern pulses. "We're right here . . ."

"TARVOS!"

An explosion as if a reversed black hole swallowed up the area bursts from around Kenji, a blinding flash of light exploding as the backdrop is replaced with something more celestial. In place of the kitsune PC is a humanoid figure towering like a ten meter-tall construct over meter-tall men.

The hands stretch out ahead, chains wrapped around the wrists, a spike driving through just above the wrists bound together. A body like something fashioned out of maroon, angular plate mail fused with a smudged design of one of Yoji Shinkawa's giant mecha connects to similar legs wrapped in more chains, another spike driven above the ankles just like the arms, tipped in claw-like projections just like the chained hands. Both sets of limbs are curled somewhat in, almost like a figure in prayer or pain. Pointed, helm-like projections flare up in a style reminiscent of the ears of the kitsune PC, complementing the canine faceplate. In place of the twin fox-tails are two long, blocky, heavy, beam-like structures wrapped in their own chain, glowing with a luminescent strip running down the sides that pulses like a heartbeat. The blocks float just behind him like a narrow cape, their light on the otherwise shadowed yet massive form casting a pall on the players below.

Then Kenji/Tarvos flexes, reaching out against the shackles straining to hold the limbs. In lieu of being able to reach out to directly tear his enemies to shreds, the beams chained together change angle and begin rotating behind him like an idling propeller, then float up and away from him, angling towards the poor saps Iyoten hired. The beam-like pods shoot off like missiles, slashing in linked movements like butterfly swords as they crash into the hired PKers, crumpling their PCs like their players collapsing in the real world. Tarvos looks up, red light gleaming from his eyes gleaming for a minute, the light running down the sides of the blocky, beam-like pods glowing in kind.

Instead of swinging at Iyoten like giant, blunted swords, they both point towards him like rifles, the light running down their length glowing brighter and slowing as light gathers at the tips. A hum begins to fill avatar space before they unleash blinding red pulses that slam into the black-garbed PKer like a semi-truck.

…

A thump sounds from the booth to his immediate left, and Yoshi tries not to notice. He heard of some losers who played games so long that they died of exposure, but nobody with more brain cells than room temperature should have problems like that. He's just not looking forward to the arguing that's going to happen again when Arimasa comes storming in from the waiting area again because that dork Sakai Naoya won't stop playing. Sure enough, about sixty seconds later, Arimasa comes down the carpeted isle with the heavy footfalls of someone with diminutive stature trying to make himself seem more intimidating than he can pull off.

The unfortunately short high school senior is practically dragging a thundercloud with him as he comes to a stop behind Naoya's chair. "Come on, dipwad, I'm not going to back off just because you graduated last year. You said just fifteen minutes half an hour ago. You've been playing The World for hours, now it's my turn!"

No hand slaps him away. No curses lance at him, threatening to throw him outside. No bodily harm is threatened, no promises to continue to prey on hapless noobs. Naoya doesn't even twitch. Arimasa steps forward and slugs Naoya's shoulder, causing Sakai Naoya to tip off balance and slide bonelessly to the ground. Arimasa and Yoshi both jump and scuttle back a few steps. "What did you do to him?!"

Arimasa hesitantly kneels down and pulls Naoya onto his back. The recently-graduated high school student doesn't move at all. Arimasa reaches down and feels for a pulse. A moment passes, then another, and just when Yoshi is about to ask what's up, Arimasa jerks back like he's burned. "Oh shit! He's dead! There's no pulse!"

Yoshi does a double take, unable to believe it. He was just taunting some new kid a couple minutes ago. Sweat starts to break out over his skin as he fumbles for his phone. He dials 1-1-9 and gives the internet café's address to the ambulance dispatcher.

…

Kubo Moe sighs and leans against the window of the bus as it rounds another corner and trundles down a road lined mostly with game merchandise shops and internet cafes. She sits up when she notices the flashing blue lights of an ambulance, and thwacks her friend sitting next to her to get her attention. "Hey, Shigeko. Look at that."

Her friend and shopping enthusiast sighs when she spots the EMTs pulling a trolley out of the internet café. A woman with short, black hair and a smart business suit is on it, with an oxygen respirator strapped over her nose and mouth. She doesn't see any sign of blood or bruising from injury, or any of the signs of food poisoning that she recognizes. "Do you think it's something she ate? I heard those game huts can have really unsanitary kitchens."

Moe pushes herself up a little and leans to try to get a better look as the medics hoist the woman into the back of the ambulance. The oxygen makes her doubt her friend's theory. "I just hope it's not another case of Doll Syndrome. There's been enough trouble connected to The World for a lifetime."

…

Author's Note: A kumiho is the Korean term for a fox spirit/creature, and unlike the Japanese kitsune is a definitively evil, malicious creature. "Sonnimga" is a variation of Sonnimgut, a Korean god or goddess of smallpox.

This chapter was put off for so long for other events, and it felt SO satisfying to finally write. I'm curious how many of you saw the signs I kept throwing out hinting at how similar Kenji/Reynart Azu and Reiko/Pi were, or the lack of anybody saying (rather than assuming) that he held Skeith. This was part of the plan since Chapter 1, with the explanation for the revelation put down in Chapter 11: Event Horizon. Kenji's motivations have largely stemmed from being angry, while Ryou Misaki (Haseo)'s motivations almost all stemmed from fear – of being shown up, of being alone, of losing the world he loved, of many things. He was angry and used anger as a shield, but in my interpretation deep down he drew from fear far more than he drew from anger. It's possible that just because he played Haseo that Skeith could have noticed him, but I thought it interesting how the Avatars seemed to choose users who resonated with them, and with them being able to transfer from one PC to another already in canon (sorta, if word from the show creators counts), this idea really wrote itself.

The look of Tarvos drew from many sources of inspiration including Tron, Persona, and especially Anubis from Zone of the Enders. It would resemble a less elegant suit of gothic-style plate-mail armor in its current state, but Kenji has yet to get his Job Extension . . . 


	21. Yata's Search

**Second Shot**

Chapter 21:

Yata's Search

Kenji stumbles and narrowly catches himself before he falls into one of the passenger rails in the train. He blinks and shakes his head vigorously to keep himself awake. He doesn't often have back-to-back shifts at Pascal's Service, but when Osamu called in sick at the last minute, Takeda didn't give any other options but to stay on from setup to takedown. Steel squeals as the train brakes activate, causing a rumble to shake through the interior. Despite the jammed conditions, passengers throughout the cab stumble and one falls into Kenji, throwing him to a floor sticky from hundreds of people tracking snow, street mud, and other things he'd really rather not consider.

When he feels resistance from the press of people at just trying to stand up, he looses his tenuous grip on his temper. He snarls and throws himself up through the other passengers, knocking several of them over. The dozen passengers immediately around Kenji press into the walls to get away from the rider who just bellowed like a lion. He takes one of the hand-straps and glares, and the other passengers quickly turn their attention away from Kenji.

By the time the train pulls into the station, he's packed in like a sardine and has to fight like a rat to get out of the train before the pushers move in and crush more humanity into the cars like garbage into a compactor. Kenji wrinkles his nose at the stale smell of too much snow and mud being tracked into a lukewarm station, adjusts the bag over his shoulder and shoulders onward through the tide of humanity to get to the surface. Only eight more blocks to walk . . .

A snowflake hits Kenji in the cheek and the sharp cold stings, making him flinch away. His threadbare coat doesn't do a very good job of keeping out the winter chill, and he can feel his elbows and sides start to go numb.

He doesn't even get to the end of the block when a man in a bright orange jacket comes up alongside him, thrusting a book at him. "You look like a man who is in conflict with the world. Have you ever considered the path of truth, the only way that you can break free from the cycle of suffering and lies?"

Kenji looks down to the Bhagavad Gita. The wind blows and he shivers as he walks over the snow-encrusted sidewalk. "I'm not interested in southern religions," he states as he tries to push the book back into the orange-garbed man who's still walking uncomfortably close.

He refuses to take it, and also keeps walking along so close that his elbow is bumping into Kenji's, the fog of his breath washing over the fatigued cook. "This life will always be hard until we come into the truth and set ourselves free. This story is the first step of a journey to overcoming the web of lies that this hollow world ensnares us with."

"You sound like this is going to give me magic that will poof all my problems away," Kenji snaps as he tries again to thrust the book back at the sidewalk peddler. "Life just sucks, get used to it."

Somehow, the proselytizer manages to avoid taking the book. The failure only makes Kenji's blood pressure rise more. The peddler spreads his orange-jacketed arms wide. "But with knowledge that this world hides from you, you can overcome—"

The unwanted proselytizer comes too close and breathes on Kenji one final time. Kenji hits him in the gut with the book, letting it fall to the snow piled up at the side of the sidewalk as he pushes the peddler into the wall. "I am so sick of you people! You think you're so smart and rich, and _better_ in every way. You want to stop living in a world full of lies? Stop spewing them."

Kenji drops the peddler to the snow and stomps home. Snow begins to fall again and the wind picks up just before he gets to the high-rise residential building. He grimaces at the chill weaving through his winter jacket and the wet seeping through his shoes. The moaning wind carries flurries of snow at him and the key for the building door clacks against the lock. Kenji curses and fumbles with the lock for a couple more seconds before a shadow falls across the door.

"Hey, Ken-kun. You look like you could use a hand."

Kenji looks up and squints against the blowing snow. Shinichi's soothing voice is unmistakable. That confident posture is the same as ten years ago in Kyoto. It's just the same as when they fled through the rain and sleet on the run from the cops. It was cold just like now, they were desperate just like now, but they were all together. They stood with each other, through thick and thin.

"Here, let me get the door for you." Shinichi adjusts the duffel bag on his shoulders, takes the keys from Kenji's hands and opens the building's front door. "Come on. I'll help you and you help me."

…

Maekawa Sei spins around in his office desk chair. He catches the lip of the desk and spins himself around again and again, speeding himself up. The high schooler stares up at the ceiling, letting out a long breath. _Even with what happened last time, I wish my brothers would call and invite me to the arena or something_. The sound of the bell jingling gives Sei enough time to jerk upright and catch the desk to halt his spinning. The clinic's front door opens for a familiar father and his young son.

Sei minimizes The World wiki and gives his patented receptionist smile. "Nakanishi-san, I hope you have been having a good month. It's been a cold winter so far. Iori-kun, the doctor is waiting for you."

He stands up and opens the door between the narrow hallway connecting the reception area to the psychologists' offices. After returning to the desk, he notices Iori's father sitting down with a book. "How have things been, sir?"

Nakanishi puts his finger in the book to mark his place and looks up. "Oh, Iori's doing much better. He threw one of his quiet fits when I forbid him from playing The World, but I think that game was having a bad influence on him. Some days he would be angry and others he would be frightfully depressed. He's been much better lately, though."

Sei nods. _Who'd have thought? Another player in The World. I wonder how everybody's doing there_.

…

The elevator gives a faint ding and slides open, revealing a stretch of cubicles. Hushed tapping and clicking floats out from the rows of men and women all dressed the same, all working on the same network and security tasks for Altimit. Sanada adjusts his black business suit and pats his coat pocket to reassure himself that the badge and documents are all still in place.

After navigating through a section of cubicleville, he comes to a secretary at a desk in front of an office against the east side of the high-rise building. A small name plate identifies the secretary with dyed-blonde hair as an Akane Hinamori under network administrator Saeki Reiko. Sanada comes to a stop in front of the desk and smothers a smirk when the secretary startles and looks up at him.

"Oh! I'm sorry, can I help you?"

Sanada reaches into his coat and draws the thick billfold containing his ID. "Agent Sanada of the Network Analysis Bureau. I am here to speak with administrator Saeki."

Akane flips a length of dyed-blonde hair off her shoulder, then glances down into a new window on her screen. The secretary glances up at Sanada and his stark business suit, back down at the window, then takes a moment to type. "She can see you now, agent Sanada."

Sanada nods and enters the office, closing the pine door behind him. Saeki Reiko leans back in her chair and steeples her hands together. "It's about time one of you sat down to get something done. I've been seeing you people snooping around for months."

The agent sits down in the worn leather chair before the desk. "The NAB is investigating a series of neurological injuries all linked to a project you have considerable experience in."

The woman once behind Pi lowers her hands to her lap. "You know that I can't go into the details of Project R.A. due to my non-disclosure agreement."

Agent Sanada nods. "However, we know that you were still involved in a number of incidents of import to the stability of computer networks in Japan. 2020 was a particularly busy year for you, even before the Third Network Crisis." He reaches into his coat and draws a brown paper folder, then sets it in front of Reiko. "While comas have dropped sharply after the sudden awakenings in October 2020, these and other conditions classified as Doll Syndrome have still been popping up here and there."

Saeki Reiko flips another page in the paper folder. "Honda's youngest son? How is it that this hasn't been all over the news? Even one of these people is well-connected enough in either politics or the Japanese economy that red flags should have been going up."

Sanada leans forward and folds his hands together on the edge of Reiko's desk. "I am glad that you recognize the potential serious implications of so many people close to those in our industry and government. Unfortunately, we do not have personnel with extensive experience of the one common thread between all of them. We would like to recruit you into a new task force being assembled to keep watch on The World and try to find some answers. You have knowledge, experience, and have rather undisputedly declared where your loyalties lie with CyberConnect. We are aware that you have been maintaining contact with multiple accounts, so you are well positioned to assist us."

Reiko turns another page and skims through the profile, then flips to a thin section printed on a different weight of paper and stamped with the NAB logo. As she scans, she says, "I don't have nearly the manpower or resources to keep an eye on all of The World. If there's one thing I learned from Project R.A. and G.U., it's that there's too much going on in The World to track everything. I don't have nearly the manpower or resources."

Sanada nods. "Our pool is not unlimited, but I think most of your concerns can be taken care of."

…

Hachi taps away at his holographic keyboard in the Serpent of Lore when the long shadow of a tall PC falls over the doorway of light leading to Raven's innocuous guild meeting room. Reynart puts his hands on his hips and looks straight at the cleric in bright robes. "Message Yata. I've got a promise to keep."


	22. Winds

**Second Shot**

Chapter 22:

Winds

Doctor Miyamoto chucks the empty dry-erase marker into a waste bin in the corner of the small coffee room converted into a conference room for his researchers. Tabby thinks she sees his hand slip once as he uncaps another pen and crosses out 'protein deficiency'. "There has to be a common link, something unhealthy that all of them have in common."

"Yes, Miyamoto-sensei, but we only have eight families who have given us permission to run genetic tests and that sample size isn't enough to give us conclusive data for anything hereditary. There haven't been any matches so far, but we're still looking at the common expression zones. Doll Syndrome could be triggered by a unique combination of environmental factors triggering transitional regions in the genome," the team geneticist doctor Ito complains.

"We haven't ruled out diet yet," another doctor sits up in his chair. "Otherwise minute variations in nutrition intake could be exacerbated by what seems to be consistent low levels of hydration."

"Every one's diet has been different," snaps a doctor next to Kubo Moe. The harsh tone in the cramped room incites another doctorate-holding scientist to discredit the nay-sayer's protest, which leads to three more leaping to defend their field.

Moe sighs quietly and draws her shoulders closer in, feeling eclipsed by men experts in their fields for longer than she's been alive. Doctor Miyamoto turns from the white board and shouts at the swelling storm of shouting, a crack in his voice making her sit up and look. His right hand is raised and fisted, clenched into a white knuckle, but his other hand dangles at his side. His already normally pale complexion looks even more chalky than normal, and a gob of spit drips from his mouth.

Miyamoto teeters forward and crashes onto the plastic conference table. Coffee splatters, and Kubo Moe shoots to her feet to feel his pulse. It feels like his adam's apple is trying to pound its way through the side of his throat. Miyamoto's left arm dangles off the table like somebody started cutting the strings of a puppet but stopped partway through.

Moe pushes a thermos out of the way and pulls Miyamoto onto his side. "Call an ambulance, he's having a stroke!"

…

Saeki Reiko taps her foot as the spinning icon continues to claim the computer is working. She straightens the cream-colored skirt on her business suit. The screen blinks to black, then brightens as the login screen for The World appears. The computer engineer scoots her office chair slightly closer to the desk, straightens in her seat, and settles her M2D on her head.

When her eyes are open, the game has finished loading and she looks down at her hand – or rather her character's hand. The nearly porcelain-pale limb clad in a western-style white dress flexes. Reiko brushes her hair back, straightening the shoulder-length blue hair of her PC. She glances at the Chaos Gate of Breg Epona around her and smirks. _I haven't used this character since the server crash when I tried to install a copy of the bracelet on it. I'm going to have to make sure to familiarize myself with her. Fortunately, being a short character doesn't stop me from doing what I need to do_.

Reiko takes the teleport to the guild atHome and selects Yata Mirror from the list. When she phases in, the red marble and other trappings of her guild's entrance hall glimmer. Not as large as some of the more social-oriented guilds, Yata Mirror contains mostly adventurers and team-quest players that tend to seek out precisely the rare or exotic areas that administrators lack the manpower to check on personally.

"Hey, Shamrock's back. How's the computer, guildmaster?"

Reiko looks up at the half-clad swordsman in baggy pants. "Between server maintenance and hard drive replacement, I've tolerated enough dallying. I'm back to assume full responsibilities, so I need a report from Natsu."

"Co-guildmaster should still be in the officer hall," the swordsman points.

Reiko nods and runs to the personal room set aside for ranking members. She pauses and frowns, then opens her character settings and sets the default movement to walk. _I'm a guildmaster now, I don't need to run around everywhere_. She looks up at the white-painted double-doors that would've fit in an English Victorian-era mansion and allows a small smile when the loading circle opens for a moment before loading her into the staff room.

Some guilds set officer spaces to public access and use the space for conferences or general meetings, but Yata Mirror is more strictly organized in a hierarchy. _Should make the transition easier, even though I haven't been here frequently since the AIDA server incident_.

"…arm was still gone when she reloaded. Even tried shutting down the game and running a defrag utility," the bright pink-haired, broad-shouldered edge punisher says. He pauses when he notices the short PC in a white dress at the door. "Hey, Sham."

"It's Shamrock," Reiko corrects without missing a beat. She strides to the desk and looks over the painted wood furniture at Natsu. The old co-guildmaster was cooperative before, but he liked being a decision maker and it's possible that he doesn't want to relinquish the position. The thin-lipped, inexpressive face doesn't give her any encouragement.

Natsu was a twin blade with a great deal of experience in agility and alchemy so he could lead exploration teams, but a brief scan only told her that he was just three levels higher than her leave of absence in the AIDA server incident. The twin blade wore a close-fitting brown coat open in the front, baring a tribal tattoo on his chest. The dull green pants were flared as the typical style seemed to be in The World R2.

Reiko shook her head to help herself focus. _No point in trying to spend the whole time trying to pick up on peripheral details_. She straightens and begins in her firm, no-nonsense manner. "I've returned from an extended period of business keeping me away from my duties as chief guildmaster. Are there any objections?"

Natsu's eyes narrow a fraction of an inch, and he doesn't move from his stance behind the desk. Reiko can hear the ticking of an analog clock in the corner of the room.

"We organizing that quest down 'da One Sin in the mirage desert?"

"Before the end of the year," Reiko replies. _A handful of the accomplishment fanatics have been looking for The World's greatest challenge, and nobody's beaten this version of The One Sin yet_. Granting this request is going to take a lot of ambitious players out of reconnaissance, but also boost her reputation and might be the only way to get Natsu to cooperate. He was the second player to ask about the event back in November.

Natsu's expression softens and he smiles, crossing his arms casually. "A pleasure to have you back, chief. I'mma take a few of'a boys an' girls out for trainin'."

He takes two steps to come around the desk, but Shamrock snaps her feet together. "First I need a report on guild status and unusual phenomena recently discovered."

Natsu nods and reaches out with one hand to gesture to the brawny edge punisher. "Then does 'e 'ave a story 'bout desert fields fa' you."

After repeating her request for his own report and waiting through his reply, she nods in dismissal and Natsu happily departs. Reiko reaches up to brush a lock of Shamrock's long, blue hair out of the way before examining this new player.

The draping robes make her think of a spell casting class, though a brief scan of the somewhat broad-shouldered young man indicates a high-level Lord Partisan. A slim white coat over what appeared to be leather body armor, with more traditional flared navy-blue trousers.

Reiko curled one hand into a tight fist to help maintain her composure. The last time she saw Leucistic, he was lying on the arena floor and flaking with white bits from the damage of having AIDA forcefully ripped from his illegally modified character. He still towered over Shamrock, but was likely smaller than the AIDA-modified character who faced Haseo in the last tournament. _I suppose I should be impressed that he's still active_.

After taking his story, she starts jotting down notes by hand for things to scout or forward to be investigated by NAB or CyberConnect. "And she never had any history of numbness or phantom limb pains before?"

"No," Leucistic answered, crossing his arms with a brief crinkle in his forehead. "She never had any problems with her character either until we went into that one area in the mirage desert. That was where we ran across a bugged beast temple statue that tried to attack us."

"You mean a creature in the beast temple statue area?" Reiko asked, sweat breaking out across her skin. There were only two incidents that she knew of, besides PKers, involving beast temple statues. Both involved AIDA. In Kuhn's case, the berserked awakening would have killed any other players present.

"No, miss Shamrock." He looked down and his lip trembled, points of light gathering at the corners of his eyes. "It was the six-month anniversary of our first date and I wanted to give her a present, but I couldn't afford anything in real life, so I let her open the chest. The beast statue started to sink and fade like normal, but instead of just fading away it changed. Started breaking apart at the seams like a hollow crystal sculpture, shattered fragments spraying. She held out her arm to guard, but the pieces shredded her shield like balsa wood. By the time we got out, the holes in her hand were so big I could see through them. After the doctor said something about Doll Syndrome, she won't come back or return my calls."

_This has to be investigated soon, but I can't send regular players on something as virulent as this_. Shamrock stood from the guildmaster's chair and gave a bow of her head. "Thank you for your report. I'll forward the area to CC Corp's administration. It may take a few days before the area is locked out, so you'll want to stay clear."

…

Kasumi Tomonari lets out a long heavy breath and leans back in his chair, tipping it on its back legs. _I'm glad that's over with_. His feet kick the metal insides of the desk and the stack of medical journals slide and spill over onto the floor. Tomonari jerks forward and reaches in a late effort to try to grab them.

"Hey, Tomonari-kun," his boss's voice comes from the open door of his meager work room. "We just got a letter of appreciation from Mikami-sensei. He said he never knew that doctors worked for the Kanto Monthly. Responses have been so positive, we want you on Doll Syndrome."

Tomonari collapses onto his desk, knocking off the last straggler journal.

…

Wind and snow howled past the holographic screen, digital static scratching at the view. His hands tap staccato over the holographic keyboard in lightning pace. Human screams pour into the wind, isolated and magnified by a filter program. Lances of light flash down in a deadly rain, piercing the polygons below. An icy boulder is hit and one face flickers to a warm mossy texture before another bug shard hits and it shatters into a spray of binary.

"No," Zelkova mutters as his eyes flash to the two auxiliary screens scrolling code. The bugged shard rain continues to pound the mountain spur in Northrend when the snow clears enough for him to see a PC trip and fall in the run from cover under a dissolving wood roof to a rocky outcropping. "It's too big, I can't stop it from here," the ex-guild-leader moans when the visual feed stops for a half second.

His eyes snap to the right at lines of colored code, yellow highlighting pointing out a burst of unknown data. A defiant woman's scream pierces the howling gale and the motion resumes, only for a shockwave to blast out like a bomb.

When Zelkova re-establishes the feed, no sign of the data storm remains.

His fingers start tapping staccato again. "Could it be…?"

"…Another epitaph?"


	23. Fierce Eyes

**Second Shot**

Chapter 23:

Fierce Eyes

Kaga Kyouko adjusts her reading glasses and brushes a lock of hair out of her way. Her red pen slashes down the history paper like a psychotic samurai through a market lane, marking historical errors from poor research and grammar that she's _sure_ her parents wouldn't have let her generation get away with. As the clock chimes five o'clock, she marks a failing grade at the top and reaches to set it down on the four-inch tall stack of graded papers looking as red as a ravaged pile of peasants.

_Would it be so hard for them to at least do some research? The Ming Dynasty had to come before Joseon or it couldn't have sent them support_. Kyouko pinches the bridge of her nose and leans back in her chair, trying to ignore the sounds of traffic seeping into the professors' lounge.

Her cell phone twangs and she reaches into her bag, hand closing on her M2D before finding her phone. It stops ringing before she can unlock it, but the message is just another reminder from the department chair about the schedule. Kyouko blows a lock of hair away from her glasses, then looks down at the M2D on her desk. _I've got today's work finished, no reason to go rushing out into rush hour. Maybe Reynart will be logged on_.

* * *

><p>Welcome to the community forums, Nogmung!<p>

Nogmung navigates through the rumor board, but only finds rabble drivel. _The Sigma server's forest areas aren't very densely populated_. The quest board seems to have shifted to the season's mountain area events in the Delta server. Nogmung leans back in his cubicle, the perpetual sound of keys clacking around him. _My character doesn't have the mobility or skills to investigate the forests. I don't like asking other people for help, but I'm not going to let third parties without oversight like Yata Mirror do all the work_.

Browsing a few more community forums for information, he finally sighs and posts looking for a character with a parkour build.

A new thread on the rumor boards has a discussion on a hunting figure stalking and supposedly PKing characters in exotic locations. After reading a couple of posts he's about to bypass the thread as trolls and rumormongers making things up until he sees an image. It's dark and blurred from a motion capture, but it looks like a Frankenstein's monster version of a red-clad twin-blade from the first version of the world.

Nogmung raises an eyebrow. _Ridiculous_. He backs out to the main forum and sees a response to his query thread.

After skipping the first few asking for payments, he reads a post from Silabus. "Hey, I think I know the perfect guy. He likes adventuring, he's working back into exotic places like the Forest of Pain, and his character has better agility and athletic skill than most PCs ten times his level. His name's Renart Azu, and he's probably training out of Dol Donna right now. If he asks for anything, just say I recommended you and he'll only need keywords."

Nogmung scans through the other applicants, but the rest look like either amateurs or leeches looking for handouts. _I suppose I've only got one choice if I want to investigate the damaged forest areas on the Sigma Server_.

* * *

><p>Hori Tatsumi grits his teeth and clenches his fists in his pockets. Flocks of high school juniors – no, <em>sheep<em> – stand in front of the board displaying the student body's grades. The top achievers, as usual, are gathered together and bleating like a herd of stupid goats. _I hate them_.

He steps back as the math teacher pauses at the cluster near the preening over-achievers. "Good job, 'Taro. You must be cruising through cram school."

The greasy-haired little brown-noser smiles back at the math teacher. "I decided I wanted to stay ahead of the curve. I'm already studying for the college exams." His crooked-toothed smile grows and he puffs his scrawny chest out even more. "I'm not going to accept just _any_ university."

Tatsumi clenches his fists so hard he can feel the nails dig through his skin before he storms off. Classes are almost done and he can't wait to log in and beat up helpless noobs as Asta.

* * *

><p>Soprano laughter echoes through the vaulting stone chambers of the cloister dungeon. Rachel shoulders into her companion, giggling when xBlu3 Surf3rx pushes her back into a standing position so he can hook an arm around her shoulders. "Hey, let's not be too quick. A hero doesn't get his reward until the quest is over!"<p>

Rachel leans into his one-armed hug and laughs with the other two, enjoying the warmth of some close company, then strides through the area partition to the beast statue. _If only he'd look more at me_.

The third member of the party faces the teleport gate and pumps his fist into the air in victory. "Sweet success! Another sector conquered for Clan Reyvtail."

He starts to jog to the teleporter when xBlu3 Surf3rx calls after him, "Hey, why are you leaving so soon? There's still that last chest," he points.

"I got the rare item drop from the boss, so I'm going to let you two fight over that. I have to be at work in thirty minutes, so I've gotta go or I'll be late." He curls his index finger to his thumb in front of his eye, then lifts it away in a strange salute. "Be seeing you."

He teleports away and Rachel bites her lip momentarily in disappointment, then turns her focus back to xBlu3 Surf3rx. He winks at her and takes her hand in his before striding like a knight with his princess to the treasure chest. He gazes into her eyes and for a moment Rachel thinks he's finally going to ask her out.

_Well, don't just stand there, sweeten the deal_, she reminds herself. Shifting slightly to make sure the light's hitting her just right, she gestures him towards the chest.

His visage brightens and he takes a surprised step back. "Are you sure?"

Rachel just smiles and tilts her head, trying not to pucker her lips as she closes her eyes. The seconds pass and she can imagine his adorable hesitance before leaning closer.

_Click_.

Footsteps.

"Hey, thanks, Ra-san."

The warbling whoosh of the teleport triggering forces her to open her eyes. An empty offering room greets her.

Several seconds pass before Rachel slides to her knees, tears streaming down her PC's and player's face.

* * *

><p>The trickling of running water is the first thing to greet Hiroshi Matsuyama's senses. After a few seconds, the area finishes loading and he looks down at the stylish gold plating of his character, Piros the Third. The polished plating seems to glow like a second sun in the tranquil city of Mac Anu. The market plaza reminds him of the pictures of abandoned Fukushima, though this early in the afternoon that's to be expected.<p>

The grandeur of the city fills the artist with a sense of accomplishment, with every stone in its place and every polygon slightly larger than life. _I may be here to check the art in the new random event locations, but there's no harm in taking the long way around_.

At the shimmy alley leading to the magic and alchemy stores, Piros spots a beastman PC sidestepping along the ledge at nearly a full walking pace. Tall and clad in maroon, angled clothing that makes him think of a peasant in improvised clothing. The player's long ears remind the graphic artist of the Egyptian god Anubis, except the blue fur coloration. The two-tailed kitsune character hops with animal grace to the ground, nearly landing on Piros.

The blue kitsune startles, jumping a half meter into the air and scuttling several steps back. Despite the surprise, Piros notes that he settles into a battle-ready crouch, hands flicking in what would've drawn small weapons if wielding them was allowed in towns, ears pressed back in wary caution as his twin tails drifted anxiously back and forth, hovering just over the cobblestone.

But the eyes . . .

The eyes are as hard as the sapphire their color resembled. Those eyes burned with contained ferocity like torches. There's something prophetic about them.

Striking an appropriate pose to get things started on the right foot, Piros greets the kitsune, "Hail, my early morning friend of fierce eyes. I am the shining knight of mystery. The champion of the shadowy unknown. The porch light of justice!"

"Piros!"

"The!"

"Third!"

The kitsune player blinks slowly once.


	24. To Breathe

**Second Shot**

Chapter 24:

To Breathe

Karl ducks under the vine hanging across the forest path, trees thick all around him. Shining plate mail clanks behind him and the nimble partisan sighs. _Stealth is impossible with that lug around. Though at least it's a thing's sound_. The area's background music may be nice, but the complete lack of insect chirps or small animal rustling feels unnerving. After a childhood filled with mandated camping with his father, a forest or field without the buzz of life feels unnatural.

His M2D lags for a brief moment, digital snow passing over it for a fraction of a second before the image restores. "There's another one," Karl calls out.

Piros growls and steps out from the fourth member of their party, Nogmung. "Annoyance! No obvious signs mar my beautiful artwork, and yet still these are not clean fields. I can not even say whether this is the work of the hateful Tri-Edge or drunken college pranksters!"

Karl rolls his eyes, fearing another strange speech is coming on. "Looks like it's just noise." He takes another step closer to the sealed door blocking them and looks up to the canopy. "Hey, kid, you still with us? What's the hold up?"

As if on cue, the huge circular gear before them drops down a few centimeters, then rolls away into the wall. A set of vines in the path beyond shake, and Reynart slides down them like a master gymnast. "A couple of polygons missing texturing up there, but nothing that I could see as dangerous." He looks down at the ragged, maroon detached sleeves on his arms. "Though apparently I need to work on my character's strength."

Nogmung nods. "It looks like this area's only suffering from residual damage caused by the network crash. I'll forward a report for strain repairs to area maintenance."

* * *

><p>Natsume stalks through the dark, her sky-blue tunic doing nothing to help her efforts at stealth in the desert area dominated by beige sandstone. Her eyes narrow and she dodges behind a pillar as two of her adventurer targets dash around a bush, the first reaching the Moon Rabbit first and delivering a mighty kick. The other player reaches up to scratch his scalp with the pommel of a shotel-like short blade.<p>

The kicker laughs and puts his arm around the twin-blade, directing him towards the Beast Temple.

Natsume's lips curl into a predatory grin.

"Sneak attack!"

The kicker and twin-blade smash into a rough cliff face before springing to their feet. Natsume starts to sprint at the twin-blade when a girl's voice shouts, "Kuhrvak Don!"

A wide lane of flames roars from the shadow warlock jogging out from behind the bush, sweeping Natsume off her feet and throwing her like a weighted doll. Both melee adventurers leap onto the would-be ambusher and after a few minutes of back-and-forth thrashing, the sky-blue-clad attacker fades like a shadow.

"Man," the twin-blade says. "PKers must be starting to train. That took way longer than I expected."

The girl shrugs, then turns and leads the party towards the next bridge when motion draws their eye. One character in dark armor, with skeletal wings leaps over a hill like it was a speed bump, pursuing a character wearing something like a full suit of plate mail but white like bone.

* * *

><p>Three sets of teleport rings faze out of the forest area, depositing a trio of player characters. Kenji flinches at the static stuttering through his speakers, the image breaking into digital snow and lagging before coming back. He glances over his shoulder at Kuhn and Yata. "You sure this can't be fixed just by unplugging the area and backing up from archive?"<p>

Yata shakes his head. "The area damage was so extensive after the Rebirth that maintenance teams couldn't lock all of them before the regular archival process backed up corrupted copies."

Kenji bares his teeth, an action reflected by his kitsune-like PC, before he turns back to the sandstone plateaus stretching out before him. "Strange area. Same blocky modular style as most randomly generated areas, but the minimap doesn't seem to be filling in all of the walls in vision range."

Kuhn squints and pokes his fingers in the air in what Kenji assumes is scrolling menus. "Looks like the draw distance in foggy areas, but there's no fog."

The graphics skip again, and the music restarts mid-note. Reynart snarls at the area in general, then straightens in an effort to look calm. The shuffling of his tails betrays his continuing agitation.

Yata lowers his hands and opens his eyes, a glint passing over the PC's frameless glasses. "The area's damage does not appear to be mobile, and it isn't nearby. We should make our way to the Beast Temple."

Kenji complains, but leads the other epitaph-wielders over the sandstone shelf. The two parties of monsters end in an ordinary fight, and the first piece of the temple key yields easily enough. The skipping frames increase as they traverse a squared U-shaped area winding to the north. The stuttering lag causes the team tank and highest-leveled player, Kuhn, to step forward onto the bridge and keep going before realizing that the PC is falling through the wood construct like it's not there.

Kenji sprints forward, grabbing one of Kuhn's flailing arms just before he goes down. The bridge starts blinking and the hacker snarls at the addition to the area's annoying anomalies.

The steam gunner looks up at the beastman PC in ragged maroon clothing. "Thanks, man. I heard of players who went into a coma after falling into bugs like this."

"Yeah, whatever," Kenji says through clenched teeth. _Why does every action I make my PC do seem to make _me_ feel strained lately?_ He grunts and calls out before rotating his camera, "C'mon, Yata, between two dancer classes we should be able to get him up."

The short, shouted, "Ha!" of action makes him swivel the camera a little faster and see his other companion, Yata, dodging a lanky monster that looks like several zombies stapled together and then painted with wood bridge and tree texturing. "Ani Zot!"

A dark whirlpool opens underneath the nearest one, the poison-purple snake skeleton twining out of it and knocking the monster up and away.

The game lags, and the other bugged timber-zombie that was a comfortable few meters away is on Reynart with a misshapen fist raised before the frames catch up. Yata tries to slice into it with his fans directly, sparks flying from the combo hits before one of the unresponsive limbs snaps out and punches him over the sandstone.

The fist comes down and Reynart glances at Kuhn before rolling to one side, grunting at rolling his shoulder over stone while keeping a grip on the steam gunner still dangling over an abyss.

Yata unleashes a light spell that doesn't appear to have any affect on the bugged monster, several of the damage numbers coming up as random unicode characters instead.

"That can't be good," Kuhn helpfully states.

Yata surges forward, his fans biting into the bugged monster again. Several of what should be damage numbers pop up as random characters instead, forcing a grimace out of the brawny dancer.

The bugged monster takes a lethargic swing that Yata easily rolls under, but then the graphics stutter and freeze. When the frames catch up, Yata is pulling himself up off the sandstone, favoring one leg. He throws his fans, the spinning kessen biting into the bugged monster closest to Reynart.

The other wood-plank-zombie stumbles forward, an oversized fist slamming into the sandstone where Yata was a moment ago and causing the graphic texturing to flicker.

"Reynart, you can still summon your avatar without your PC letting me go! If there was ever a good time, it's now!" Kuhn says with a tremor in his voice.

"I can't feel it," Kenji snaps, gritting his teeth as he strains, Reynart struggling to lift Kuhn a few more inches.

Yata rolls away from one monster, then snaps into a block to try to hold off the stapled-zombie-monster fighting him. The other, freed of thrown fans, turns to the kitsune PC.

An oversized arm sprouting from where a head should be slams down at Reynart, who rolls right to evade it, then left to dodge a smaller arm. The area's background music skips and starts repeating the same two seconds.

Red crawls into Reynart's eyes from the corners. The misshapen monster begins swinging, but this time Kenji snarls and tugs up on the hand holding Kuhn.

Red lines flare over the kitsune, blazing over his ears and tails.

Light shines from the hand holding onto Kuhn and the gunner grimaces, but Kenji swings up the PC in yellow like a rag doll, swinging him like a flail and knocking the bugged monster over.

"Ouch!" Kuhn snaps, holding his ribs but coming to his feet. He sucks in a breath, halts, then finishes the breath in and draws his steampunk carbine.

Kenji snaps his hands out to his sides, fans flicking out from sleeve sheathes. The epitaph pattern traces over his tessen as he slashes into the bugged monster. Splinters fly away and two limbs hit the ground, both losing graphics texturing. Eyes luminescent with crimson light, he flays into the monster until it stops moving under its own will, polygons growing fuzzy with 1s and 0s as the creature disintegrates.

Snarling like a wild wolf, Reynart launches himself at the other bugged monster in a flying kick, sending it soaring over the edge. It flails, but after passing the traversible plane dissolves into binary code like its other. The graphics around where it was flickers, the sandstorm beneath the mesa halting and then vanishing into a flat, white square.

Yata and Kuhn hold wary crouches against the kitsune blazing with a red and white epitaph pattern. His teeth remain bared and a long snarl leaks out of his long snout before he has to take a breath.

Kenji backs up a step and straightens, the epitaph pattern fading like smoke on the wind. He squints in annoyance at the music, still stuck on the two-second loop, and the sky texturing starts flickering into a blank white. He clenches his fists.

Kuhn shrugs. "Well, we know it's in 'ya at least. Don't worry too much about trying to bring it out right away, even Haseo couldn't summon Skeith at first."

"Don't patronize me," Kenji snaps. "If an emo teenager who couldn't even figure out the difference between C and Red Berry can channel his fear to summon the Terror of Death, _I_ should be able to get Tarvos to wake up."

"In time, yes," Yata says as he takes a step closer, leaving his fans stored away. "However, some objectives should not be rushed. Tarvos is particularly dangerous and being able to control it will be as important as being able to call it out."

"Tch," Kenji spits. "I'm done wasting my time here."

He storms back down the path to the teleport gate. Yata sighs and brings his palms together, reaching inside himself for Fidchell.

* * *

><p>Author's Notes: Yes, I did just tweak the game's spells. Or more accurately add to them. There'd probably be plenty of expansions if somebody wanted to take The World and make a real MMO out of it.<p> 


	25. Promises

**Second Shot**

Chapter 25:

Promises

Kaede blinks and at the grandiose foyer of Guild Canard, her home in The World since the dissolution of Moon Tree. The white marble and vaulting cedar beams remind her of a strange architecture mishmash of an imperial Ming and French Baroque. The usual cliques of players clumps here and there in yawning entryway.

An exhausted sigh from beside her brings her the university professor's attention back to the training team she just finished with. The blade brandier in a green long coat waves to her. "Thanks for the time, Kaede-san. I've gotta go or I'm gonna miss the bus."

She nods with the requisite polite smile and his character fades away under a sequence of rings. With him gone, she looks to the others and bows. "I believe this is it for today, gentlemen."

The intermediate level players bow back and depart to their own paths. The swordswoman in red opens her inventory and starts sorting items to sell when Gaspard strides into her camera view. "Hey, Kaede-san. Saburou told me you got enough quest points to afford unlocking Fomoraig."

Kaede closes her inventory and smiles. "Yes, we finished an animal quest in the Sigma server. I was considering unlocking it and taking Reynart next week."

Gaspard laughs with a youthful cheer that reminds her of her late son and an ache creeps into her stomach. He looks up at her, missing the strain. "Well, I'll be staffing the shop next week, so be sure to stop by and sell whatever neat goodies you find. I think you're only the third member of Canard to gain access to the Lambda server, so definitely stop by to tell us about it."

"Waaah!" Kenji cries out as he throws himself away from the hulking boss with cannons in place of fists. One of the hybrid creature's limbs comes crashing down into the landscape, throwing up a cloud of dust and leaving temporary terrain deformation.

"Scarlet Thrust!" Piros bellows as he slams into the exposed flank of the boss, depleting the last of its hit points. The boss topples over and the gold-armored partisan preens.

Kenji bites down on his lip to keep from pointing out how silly he looks, even without the constant annoyance of his reflective gold surface. _He's helping you, don't be vocally critical_. His PC stands, the spoils of his search of the boss's body appearing in a pop-up that he closes without looking at the rewards. "Well, that's that."

Instead of throwing out a one-liner or charging for the chaos gate, Piros stands still.

The silence fills Kenji with a deep sense of dread. "Uh . . . hey, did you want to say something?"

Another few seconds of silence pass before Piros shifts, the clank of implausibly-shaped plate mail pounding the hacker's ears. The fighter locks eyes with the beastman PC, looking more serious than Kenji's ever seen. Then he laughs, something tense in it as well as the jovial face of his online persona. "Indeed, O he of fierce eyes. No sooner had I finished the new costume artwork than my guild, Graphics Unbelievable, discovered another mark of the foul Tri-Edge despoiling my beautiful areas."

Piros clenches a fist. "I have not the time between work and family to find these travesties myself." He jerks straight, eyes boring into the twin-tailed beastman PC. "Help me find these cruelties on artwork, and I shall help you on your quest . . . for . . . quest points."

Kenji leans back on his cushion. _If I accept I'll have a strong, experienced character specialized in fighting, but I won't be able to get stealth training and it'll mean yet one more thing to do that won't help me catch up. If I tell him to get lost I may piss him off, and this guy's well-connected besides strong. Damnit, Shinichi, how were decisions always so easy for you?_

Reynart flicks his war fans into his sleeves, the kessen vanishing in the same flare of light as other weapon stow animations. "You just want to know about contaminated areas?"

"Ah hah! Yes, my friend of fierce eyes," Piros says as he turns to look over the water at the mechanical cannon thing in the distant background. "The toil I and others in Project G.U. cannot be resigned to the ignominious fate of befoulment by miscreants. They deserve to be seen in their pristine beauty! What say you?"

The plate-armored human PC whips around on Reynart, eyes boring into Kenji's very soul. "Er . . . Yeah, of course."

* * *

><p>Reynart's twin tails catch in the bronzed door slamming shut, and the beastman jumps into the air with a howl. Piros chuckles, but Klarinette remains silent as a shadow. Kenji shoots a quick glare at Piros, who just smiles back, then glances at Klarinette. She returns a professionally indifferent stare, as if saying 'ready to go?' before she turns around to scan the room.<p>

Despite the high level of the Sigma server's cave area, the cave appears bland and empty. No monsters greet them in the small, round cavern they find themselves trapped in. The bare walls glisten occasionally with the glint of light reflecting off dripping moisture. Kenji glances up at the yawning hole, not quite even enough to call a proper doorway. He looks over his shoulder at the locked door and reaches out, sweeping his cursor over it. After moving twice, he activates the pop-up asking for twenty chim spheres.

"Crap, I've only got three chim spheres. Any of you?" Kenji asks.

Klarinette shakes her head. "Four."

Both look at Piros, and Kenji could almost swear a cricket chirped in the background. After several seconds, he reaches up a hand to scratch the back of his head and look at the two of them. "What are you looking at me for? I used up mine on the last door."

Kenji frowns, noticing his PC's tails twitch in a hover over the floor. "That's odd, I thought all areas had to have the resources necessary to unlock all doors."

Now Piros frowns, letting his hand fall to his side. "No, that's only if you wish for the 'ever ready adventurer' or whatever that perk is that arena emperors can get. High level areas have fewer and fewer chim tunnels and elemental orbs."

Kenji scratches his chin. "In that case, maybe involvement in the arena isn't as useless as I thought." He looks over to the uneven hole in the side of the room, winding away into the darkness. "In that case, I think that opening is our only way out. I wonder what the gimmick for this area is?"

Klarinette takes the lead at the winding opening, and Piros clanks in thought. "I think it's ambushes by bats and cave ninjas."

"Cave ninjas?" Kenji splutters, nearly tripping over a stalagmite. "What's next, roving bands of biker martial artists?"

"Of course not," Piros says as he sidles between rock outcroppings. "Those are in the castle-temples."

Reynart face-faults, then picks himself up and dusts off his character's ragged clothing. "I know there aren't a lot of options for looks with Adept Rogues, but I'm going to be glad when I get my job extension."

"The path of faith," Klarinette says in a rare act of volunteering speech. Her cyan hair and pale blue clothing disappears into the dark gray rock walls as she slips through a turn in the tunnel dropping over an edge.

Reynart and Piros dash forward, then freeze at a narrow ledge snaking out over a misty abyss for a couple of meters. The two men dig in their heels and skid, the twin-tailed kitsune halting right at the edge and the armored knight crashing into him. Piros wheels his arms in a desperate effort to throw himself back, and Kenji cries out as the opening yawns up at him despite his flailing arms' attempts to find purchase.

A hand on his wrist brings him to a sharp, jerking stop, and he looks up to see Klarinette, one hand on the ledge and the other holding his arm.

Reynart squints, then asks, "This isn't a lost area, is it?"

"Not to my knowledge," Piros responds, testing the edge for another way across. "Why?"

Kenji focuses on levering himself up onto the inches-wide ledge with Klarinette before looking pointedly back up at the ceiling just above the next outcropping. "Because there's one of those Signs you mentioned."

All three players crane their necks, and Piros, starts growling. "Foul Tri-Edge, now you desecrate perfectly ordinary fields?"

Kenji leans closer to Klarinette and whispers, "Not that this is much of an 'ordinary' field."

She nods sagely, causing the ball-ended antennae-like protuberances on her head to jangle.

Kenji directs her to the outcropping and turns back to Piros. "If you don't have the agility to sidle, you're going to have to test your PC's strength and jump it."

Piros looks at the ledge barely as wide as his feet, then over the meters to the opposite outcropping.

He looks back along the meter of tunnel to the turn, then back to the gap.

Mist swirls.

"I think that's slightly longer than I can jump," Piros says with a slump of his shoulders and rare serious tone.

Reynart glances at his feet, shuffles a few centimeters to one side, then points Klarinette to a spot half a meter from him. "Then we'll have to make this a teamwork test. Jump and we'll catch you."

"With your strength?" Klarinette prods.

"I've been working on it," Kenji snaps as his kitsune PC bares his teeth. She doesn't flinch. Kenji looks back over at his armored companion. "Come on, Piros, the door back is locked. This is our only shot."

He grumps and looks for a few seconds more before heading back to the tunnel bend. He turns around, braces one foot on the back wall, then bursts into a sudden sprint as he cries out in an over-the-top fashion true to his online persona. He starts dropping and flails his arms, forcing his two lanky compatriots to snatch into the gap to grab him. His weight pulls them both over the side and they both scrabble for the cliff, catching it by a centimeter. After several minutes of struggling to get Piros to the level of the cliff, he reaches up with a clang and grabs hold himself, then flips himself up onto the outcropping before hauling up his companions.

"Hah hah, a true testament to the power of teamwork and cooperation!" he says with a chuckle, striking a pose.

Kenji's ears fall flat. "Let's just get out of here."

"No path," Klarinette says as she comes back from the opposite side of the outcropping. They look out and Kenji sags at the cliff winding out and the abyss on his right. "Great. Now we're stuck."

"Not if it still works," Piros says, positioning himself directly under the sign etched into the cliff curving in over the outcropping.

"Works?"

"You never heard of the battle against Cubia during the Third Network Crisis, did you?" Piros responds, still holding the pose of the confident captain adventurer.

"There's no way all of the rumors from that time were true. A computer game can't make people drop into a coma and die," Kenji responds.

Piros waves to Klarinette, motioning up to himself, and she takes the hint to jump straight onto his shoulders without the proffered hand. He glances up, then suddenly jerks his head down. Eyes on the floor, Piros says, "Well, let's see if you can reach it, Reynart Azu."

"This is crazy," he says even as he clambers up the gold-plated partisan. He pauses to glance down at Klarinette, who silently cups her hands together and waits for him to step up. He huffs and complies, then jerks to keep his balance when she thrusts him up. He reaches up, straining to reach the glowing orange gash that he still thinks more like an 'A' than some sign, but just as he's about to ask what he's supposed to do next, the light blazes and he blinks against it.

When his eyes open, he's looking at the Sign burned into the gravel of a temple area floor. He glances down to see Klarinette, Piros, and sky.

Gravity asserts and both players crash into him, leading to several moments where of groaning and shouting and somebody begging for the plated idiot to get off his solar plexus.

The banter stops when static and lag passes through their M2Ds like the crack of a whip. Kenji stands, brushes himself off out of reflex, and looks up into the sky to see the cloud texturing frozen. "Great, it's just like that stupid bugged area that Kuhn thought I could handle."

"Well, at least the gott statue is right past these doors," Piros says as he strides up the steps to the platform the gate resides on.

Reynart hops up. "Well, let's get this over with. I've still got three magazines to go through and I've got setup at 4:00 tomorrow."

"Oh, you're a reader?" Piros inquires as Klarinette reaches for something in the well.

"No, but in two months my lease expires and I need to find somewhere else to live." Kenji chuckles derisively. "Not exactly a dearth of cheap places in Tokyo."

The kitsune PC reaches out to the door in a casual motion, but when he touches it the door collapses back like rotted cardboard waiting for a breeze to blow it down.

Kenji grits his teeth as the world's loading symbol appears, stuttering, in the corner of his view. The area unloads, blank black surrounding him. A glint draws his eye to something bone-white in the distance, shifting like waves on a distant shore. He reaches out to it, and his computer lags, the beast statue area appearing in the next moment.

Mis-matched textures splot over the texture, ugly orange text marking 'file not found' and other strange assortments. Static crackles over his speakers, the frame rate stuttering. The beast temple flickers and for a moment Kenji could swear that he saw a giant, armored oni before the mis-matched statue is back. A stutter causes him to jerk to one knee, and a crack interrupts the static in his ears.

Light flares above and he looks up into a missing roof to a sky render intended for a mountain blizzard. A whole yawns open, a figure with skeletal wings zooms down from the sky, sword braced to pierce and something like that fiery zombie-monster's bracelet unfurling around it before light lances out from his sword into the statue.

White fills his vision and Kenji squeezes his eyes shut, the sound cutting out entirely. When the standard castle area theme starts up, he opens his eyes to an ordinary beast statue room.

He looks to his left at Klarinette in still confusion, then to his right at Piros, still staring up with a slack-jawed expression. "That . . . that was just like a fellow adventurer when I journeyed with Kite of Fair Eyes."

A buzz from his tablet vibrating with an incoming call reminds Kenji that the outside world still has things needing his attention. "Well, it looks like this area is fine. I'm sending a report on the last area to Raven and heading out, you two should probably be get going, too." He turns to Klarinette. "Thanks for putting up with me and him. If you want the treasure, it's right over there."

She gives a single nod and he proceeds to teleport away and log out.


End file.
